Bourne Again
by thrownhammer
Summary: [COMPLETE] Odd chapters are Nicky's perspective about her introduction to the program. Originally she was trained as an asset, only to later be reassigned after 9/11. EVEN are in the present and follow Bourne as he puts the last few pieces of the puzzle together. In his search for the lynchpin to fold up the whole operation if it went south, he learns to hate truth more than lies.
1. Chapter 1:  She sees the Light

Chapter 1

October 1999

White, searing light had been Constance Lindbergh's only companion for longer than she could remember. How long had she been lost in the whiteness? It had certainly been weeks and more likely over a month. The room had ceilings, walls, and a floor made out of square panels of lights. She had initially laughed at them because they reminded her of a disco floor only with white lights. They hadn't seemed bright at first but now they were unbearable. She was practically snow blind. They were covered with some sort of silicone coating to soften them, not quite as effective as a padded room but it served the same purpose? The only thing that wasn't lit up was the door, a hole in floor which served as the toilet, two hoses that brought food and water in, and the video cameras all around the room. The ceiling was just high enough to put the cameras out of reach. She lacked the comfort of the room even being square, it was large and circular which provided little to no tactical advantage, so that when they came for her she had to fight them from three sides.

She had been given nothing, no clothes, shoes, blanket, cot, table, or mirror… absolutely nothing. The room was cold enough so that she was constantly freezing, but warm enough so that she wouldn't die. Noise was continuously pumped into the room at different times and volumes and whenever she fell asleep they would change it to keep her awake, or if that failed to work the men would come for her.

The men didn't come for her in any sort of discernible pattern, sometimes days would go by, sometimes just a few minutes. Men would come and take her from the room. Sometimes they would beat her; other times drug her, or interrogate her. Sometimes it was a combination of all of them. Once they locked her in a tank and filled it with water until she drowned, only to resuscitate her. Another time they locked her in a gas chamber and pumped it fill of different gasses for an hour.

Other times they would knock her out and perform surgeries on her. She thought that they had removed her tonsils and her wisdom teeth had definitely been extracted. She knew that a tattoo on her ankle had been removed along with several moles on her body. They had also performed some sort of abdominal laparoscopic surgery as well, and while this last one was terrifying in that she had no idea what they had done to her, they at least stopped beating on her for a few days after it.

She couldn't believe that she had volunteered for this. Sure there had been a very long legal agreement that she had to sign in regards to all of the dangers involved, but when she read the parts where it talked about some parts of the program being considered torturous she hadn't realized it would be _actual_ torture. She was told that she could use any means possible to escape including killing guards who were being trained for other top secret jobs and knew the risks. She had thought they had been kidding; now she knew they were deadly serious.

The guards would mercilessly beat her, sometimes for hours. Every part of her body was bruised and broken except for her face, they were very careful to not damage her face; everything else apparently was fair game. Once she had overpowered one guard and almost took out the other, for which she was beaten for hours, the bottom of her feet took the brunt of the assault as they had beaten them with a piece of bamboo until they had turned black as coal and later a sickly dark green. Even though it caused agonizing pain, she had massaged them for hours trying to keep blood flowing through them.

The worst torture by far was the lie detector. It wasn't the detector itself that was terrifying, but it was the fact that they strapped her into an old electric chair and they electrocuted her if she lied or even if she told the truth. She found it infuriating at first, but slowly she came to understand how to trick the test or the test proctor. Also if she kept her answers generic enough, while still answering the question, it seemed to satisfy the proctor. But they also didn't want her to actually tell the truth. The interrogator wasn't in the same room as her nor was the machine, but the robotic voice came from and ancient looking speaker that reminded her of the one on Charlie's Angles and the machines needle gage appeared on a TV mounted on one wall. It took her several sessions to understand:

_"What's your name?"_

"Constance Lindbergh…" she replied honestly and the machines needle remained flat, but she was shocked anyway.

_"Where were you born?"_

"A hospital," she replied honestly and the machines needle remained flat, but she wasn't shocked. Perhaps vague answers were best?

_"Where were you educated?"_

"Brown," she replied honestly, but evasively. She didn't go to Brown University as the answer implied she had gone to Harvard. But she had attended Brown W Elementary School for one week, just long enough to take an IQ test and bury the needle; then she was sent elsewhere. The machines needle remained flat, but she wasn't shocked.

_"What's your current objective?" _

"To graduate," she wasn't shocked. Technically it was true, but obliviously evasive in that that was not her mission objective. They should ask better questions.

_"What's your most heartfelt desire?" _

Damn, she thought… She paused long enough that she was afraid of getting shocked for not answering. Then she imagined that robotic voice, the voice she had come to hate and despise and what she wanted to do to the person on the other side of the glass, "To give you a Colombian neck tie." That sounded like reciprocity to her.

There was a very, very long pause this time to which she applauded herself, but kept from smiling. She knew the persons hand was on the button debating on whether or not to shock her and seeing her derive pleasure from her response would definitely tip the scales.

_"Good. Please escort yourself to your room. You will be afforded eight hours of uninterrupted sleep; make the most of it." _ There was a click and a buzzing and the metal restraints on the chair unlocked and she jumped up and ran to the door, wincing in pain with each step. There were four other doors in the room, but she knew they would be locked. She walked back to her room, expecting a trap. She saw other doors along the hall, doors like hers. There was another room at the far end of the hall, she knew it was the way out and knew it was locked, but it was very hard not to go to it.

Looking into her room she saw the lights were dimmed and there was a large piece a cardboard on the floor, from a refrigerator perhaps, and a small pile of food was on it. It was too much to resist, she ran in and greedily ate the banana practically whole and even debated eating the peel. For weeks she had eaten nothing but cold pea soup or some such gruel that came through the tubes once a day. She heard the door close, but didn't care. There was a ham and cheese sandwich, an apple, a Styrofoam coffee cup of French onion soup and plastic orange juice cups with peel away lids. She ate it all and placed the trash by the door. The only thing she kept was one of the OJs; she placed it next to the cardboard, and laid down on it, realizing its purpose.

She realized that the temperature had been turned up and the lights were slowly dimmed until the room was pitch black except for the light coming from under the door. They piped in the sound of a light rain fall, but she never knew it. She was sound asleep almost immediately upon laying down. Weeks of sleep deprivation had taken their toll on her mind and body, but the heavy dose of tranquilizers her captors had added to her meal certainly didn't hurt.

Later she woke up in the dark and felt like it had been longer than eight hours, a lot longer. She drank her juice and saw that the trash by the door was gone. She laid back down in the darkness and continued creating a whole false life for herself, something that she had started weeks ago but was holding back until it was ready. She invented family, friends, skill sets, as many basic things as she could think of and repeated them over and over and over, especially her new name. She fell asleep thinking about her new life and woke up to the sound of the door clicking open.

_"Proceed down the hall to the right and have a seat please,"_ said the robotic voice, they had never spoken to her before, nor had the guards. She knew one of the many guards felt badly for her sometimes though, after an exceptionally brutal session he would lower her to the ground instead of hurling her into her room.

She nervously walked down the hall and voluntarily sat in the electric chair, with more than a little bit of trepidation. She was surprised that the restraints didn't lock by themselves.

_ "What's your name?"_

"Whatever you want it to be…" she quipped, using a line from one of her favorite movies, Pretty Woman.

_"What's your name?" _the voice insisted.

She sighed in exasperation, "Nicolette Parsons, you can call me Nicky…" she rolled her eyes, the machines needle remained flat.

_"Where were you born?"_

"A hospital in Boston," she replied and the machines needle remained flat, but she wasn't shocked.

_"Where were you educated?"_

"Brown," she replied honestly, but evasively.

_"What's your current objective?" _

"I'm not sure what you mean? Why am I here?" she wasn't shocked.

_"What's your most heartfelt desire?"_

"To have a baby," she cooed. It was an outright lie, there was no way she was going to let a child ruin her career, there would be time for that later. She was leaning on her maternal instinct, hoping her body's biological clock felt more strongly about the prospect than her mind did. The needle twitched more than normal, but didn't spike.

_"Where is your base?"_

She said in a slightly dumb voice, "Oh, wow! My bass…? I sold that thing years ago; I went through a total grunge phase…" She really had owned a bass guitar, but how would they know that.

_"Who are you working for?"_

"First and foremost, the Lord, we are all his children," this was also a lie. She wasn't sure which she would be shocked by first, the chair or the bolt of lightning. She was raised with a strict Roman Catholic upbringing and was vehemently anti-religion and anti-God now.

_"How did you lose your virginity?" _

She said in a very proper tone, "I am saving myself for marriage, thank you very much!" If any lie she told could pass a lie detector test it was that one, Lord knows she had used it enough. No, she wasn't a tramp; nuns ask entirely too many personal questions.

_"What is your favorite Bible verse?"_

She almost laughed, they thought they had her trapped, "Mark 13:35…"

_"What does it say?" _

"Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight or when the rooster crows, or in the morning…" She couldn't keep from smirking; no verse in that damn book fit her situation better than that one.

There was a buzzing sound and a click of one of the doors behind her opening. She watched in the reflection on the TV that the lie detector needle was broadcast over and waited for the guards to get closer, when they were four feet from the chair she sprung into action. She lifted up from the chair and spun around, she stepped up into the seat of the chair and then vaulted off the back of it; the chair was bolted to the floor. The net effect was that it looked like she was running up massive steps. The two men were about four feet apart and had been approaching each side of the chair, and they both looked stunned that she was flying through the air and she realized that either they hadn't known she wasn't shackled down, or they had forgotten.

It appeared to everyone, the guards and the observers, that she had gravely mistimed her jump as it was taking her to the left of the guard on the right. She wasn't going to hit the guard, but was also not close to the door that the guards came through, that was between them both. As she flew by him, she grabbed his head and used him as a pivot point, carrying her back around to the other guard. She pulled back and twisted as she spun and heard a satisfying crack and some grinding of bone as the man's neck broke. She flung her feet up and tried to grab the second guard with her feet as she went, but came up short merely kicking him in the back propelling him forward, off balance.

She hit the ground hard, right in the middle of her back and the back of her head hit the ground with a jolt. The dead or dying guard fell halfway on top of her and she scrambled to her feet and grabbed his unused nightstick. She got to the other guard just as he got his night stick out, he swung as she charged and hit her in the ribs hard, and she kept eye contact as she swung in order to not telegraph her target and hit him hard in the knee cap. He howled in agony and came down on the knee causing even more pain, she hit him on the back of the head hard, but not as hard as she could and he dropped to the ground silent.

She grabbed his key card and clenched it in her teeth, due to her lack of clothing and with it pockets and grabbed his other night stick as she ran through the door and up a flight of stairs. She swiped the card and was then completely stunned by the stark contrast of the room beyond. Instead of the metal and white glass prison which seemed very hospital like, the room beyond had thick red carpet, luxurious wooden floor to ceiling bookcases which were evenly interspaced by either doors or on the opposite side floor to ceiling windows which rose to the lofty twenty foot ceiling. It looked like a hallway or possibly a former formal dining room. There was a massive fireplace which was roaring but did little to heat the massive room. It looked every bit like a Library in an English Manor house. The sudden change in environment made her feel very modest.

"Congratulations, Ms. Parsons your interview is complete. My name is Margret, let me be the first to welcome you," a female voice said softly. The woman who spoke was walking from behind a desk at the far end of the room and was holding a stack of clothing. She looked very matronly and spoke with a proper English dialect. "Here Nicolette, let me help you," she helped her dress in sweat pants, a cotton t-shirt, robe and slippers. "Those aren't the normal slippers; I bought those for you myself. I know your feet must be the cause of much anguish. I knew you would graduate, they weren't so certain."

Margret was an older woman who served as the house mother for the female recruits. She very much reminded her of Margret Thatcher and wondered if they had chosen the name Margret for her as a joke or maybe she picked it herself. Her hair style, while out of date was very proper and her platinum hair went nicely with the blue blouse and pearls she was wearing.

The slippers felt like they had Tempurpedic foam in them and felt exquisite on her mutilated feet. "Oh wow, they are magnificent! I feel like crying they feel so good… Thank you so very much."

"You deserve them dear. Please don't cry now, you have not cried once since you arrived. Very few people can boast that. Here you are, this is your ID card, please keep it with you at all times." The badge had a photo and Nicolette 'Nicky' Parsons on it. It was still hot. "Dr. Hirsch will see you now, please follow me…"

She led her into the office of Dr. Albert Hirsch, he was typing as she entered and without looking up he said dismissively, "thank you Magpie… You may leave us now." Margret turned and left closing the door. Nicky looked at some of the awards, commendations, and diplomas on his wall as he finished writing she saw that he held double Doctorates from Harvard, both in Medicine and Psychology. She read his name and realized that she knew it.

"Please have a seat Nicolette…" he said gruffly. He was around sixty five years old and didn't look or sound as if he was in the best of health. "It's nice to meet another Harvard Alumni."

She walked over and sat in the chair across from him and smirked because the chair was slightly lower than his, a subtle yet intentional mark of his dominance."I do apologize, but you must be mistaken I attend Brown…" she said innocently, he wouldn't get her that easily.

He smirked, "Quite right. There is something you would like to ask me," he said it as a statement not a question.

"Dr. Albert Hirsch, I believe I have read several journal articles by you about PTSD and Stockholm syndrome amongst others."

"You did far more than read them dear girl, you wrote a rather scathing rebuke for your capstone…"

She fidgeted in her chair, which was getting even smaller by the second, despite her efforts not to let it get to her. She had completely and totally shredded his theories apart and it was done in a less and nice way.

"No need for that," referring to her shifting, "your work was well thought out, concise, and truly showed what a brilliant mind you have. It was of course completely baseless and utterly naïve, but I would have given you top marks. I applaud your effort and truly look forward to seeing a critical review of your own work ten years from now once you've seen these conditions in real life. I chose you largely based on that paper; I need someone who thoroughly understands what it is I do here, to be my eyes and ears abroad. Someone who is willing and able to look at things with a critical eye could prove useful."

"Thank you sir, it will be an educational collaboration to be sure," she offered diplomatically.

Margret's voice spoke up from the speaker, _"Sir, candidate number eight has finished his interview as well, what should I do?"_

"Let him in and we will be out momentarily," he said to the mic before returning his attention to Nicky. "I do apologize; we have never had two people finish at the same time before. Usually I prefer to spend some time with you to ensure the proper transition. You seem stable enough, nothing a night in the infirmary won't fix. How do you feel?"

"I am nearly blind from the lights. I have some broken ribs I think…"

He instantly sounded concerned, "From when?"

"Just a few minutes ago…"

"Oh, quite right," he obviously thought that it had been from weeks ago. "We will look at that immediately. Your eyes should adjust within a day or two, some recruits have reported headaches but usually only after long exposure; you should be fine but let me know if you experience it. Welcome to the program… You are dismissed; Margret will show you the way."

"Sir, what kind of surgery was done to me?" she asked more rapidly than she should have, not really expecting an answer.

He looked up and took his glasses off, "That usually it goes unnoticed by most subjects. I performed a tubal ligation. I usually wouldn't divulge that to a normal patient, but you do routinely use five separate types of birth control, often simultaneously. Six if you count the pull out method. Any sane person would consider that overkill. I figured this will save you from five different problems. The ligation should suffice, you are to cease using the others," he put his glasses back on and went back to his work.

There was little about her sex life she would call routine, except for her maniacal use of birth control. How did they even find this stuff out? Did they interview every ex-boyfriend she ever had, that was a fairly short list; at least it was of the guys they could possibly know about. What had they told them, that they were from the CDC or something? Oh, God… how embarrassing… that had to be it. They probably told them she had a new STD or something: Constanceitis Crotchrottus. Tell someone that and they would spill the beans about everything. That lie would be reinforced by her overzealous birth control use, as well as her aversion to semen. 'I am _really_ not going to the High School reunion' she thought bitterly.

Something he said just dawned on her, "You performed the surgery?"

"Yes. You are one of the most valuable people on the planet to me Ms. Parsons. I wouldn't trust you to some common butcher. There was a full surgical team of course."

"Of course…" she muttered as she turned the knob and left."Damn," she muttered, "look at what these people make you give."


	2. Chapter 2: Evel Kenevil

Chapter 2

Present day

If there was something Jason Bourne despised more than bright lights in his face, it was water. He had a horrible knack for being shot or shot at and ending up unconscious in large bodies of water. First he had been shot escaping Wombosi's yacht and spent some time bobbing around the Mediterranean. He used to be thankful for that for changing him, but now he had regained enough of his memories to believe that he would have quit the program and ran even if he hadn't lost his memory, he just would have been better at it. The second time had been when Marie had been killed while driving over a bridge in Bhagalpur. The image of her ghostlike lifeless corpse floating off into the emerald green waters of the Ganges would always haunt his dreams. Now he was once again floating underwater with a bullet in his back.

He tried to swim and had trouble getting his limbs to move correctly and for a moment he was horrified, had he been hit in the spine? After a few seconds his mind must have gotten the signals sorted out and he fought the urge to swim directly to the surface and swam as far as he could in a random direction before slowly breaking the surface. It was mid January and the Hudson was near freezing, he could feel his energy being sapped by the second. He could only hope that it was from the cold or the fall and not blood loss. There was a retaining wall along the length of the shore which was too high for him to reach the top of.

"God damn man, you are fucking crazy son!" he heard male a voice exclaim from above him, he looked up and saw a big fluffy beard and immediately thought of Santa Claus.

"Hey, can you help me out of here?"

"No, you're too far down, its low tide. There is a ladder fifty feet to the right…" He was able to make it to the ladder and the man helped fish him out of the river. "Damn man, I saw Evel Kenevil do that as a kid, but he had a bike and a helmet, he also broke every bone in his body… Are you okay man?"

Now that he could see more of him he was decidedly not St. Nick. He was a sixty something year old biker that looked like he had been down too many bad roads. He was wearing a leather jacket, ancient jeans, leather boots and gloves. He had a blue doo rag covering his bald head. He saw prison tattoos on his neck and an ancient pair of dog tags hung around his neck.

Jason looked up at the building and actually laughed, "Yeah, I feel great given the circumstances… I need to get some place and get dry before I die of exposure." As if on cue, faint police sirens could be heard. Both of their heads craned, which wasn't missed by either of them.

"Names Red and I feel a bit chilly myself; you want to catch the last of the Cowboys game, I got a place two blocks up…"

Every fiber of his being told him to flee, but he was out of time, wounded, battered and soaking wet in freezing weather. "Great to meet you, I'm Brian. That sounds terrific; you sound like you're from Texas…"

They both started hobbling down the street, "nah, Oklahoma. The good Lord didn't see fit to make me a Texan but I am a 'boy through and through."

Jason saw that Red was hobbled as well, "did you jumped off a building too?"

He laughed, "Nah a cab ran a light the other day and I laid my sled down, they are holding her hostage in the city impound, I think I am going to have to break in to get her out, at the daily rate they are charging me. Wait, you _jumped_ off? There are easier ways to kill yourself you know, try getting married…"

Bourne started to laugh, but it hurt too much, "Somebody was shooting at me, so it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"I think that depends on who's shooting at you…"

He couldn't help but laugh at that, "I guess so… Maybe we can work something out on your bike…"

They walked back to a tiny bar that was wedged in between two buildings and despite the size of the place it looked packed with a bunch of Harley's out front. "We usually aren't this busy; we are doing a benefit ride for a little girl with cancer later this week, she's the daughter of the guy that owns the place, her names Sophia. We got clubs coming in from all over. We should use the back stairs..." He unlocked the three locks on the door and let him in. "You're welcome to a cot, sorry that's all there is, we let people crash here when they've had too much to ride out. I gotta get back down stairs. My buddy the owner is at the hospital with Sophia, so I came to town to help out; I live upstate. You better lock the doors when I leave. The man isn't going to come in here without a warrant and a full on SWAT team. I'll be back up in an hour or so."

As soon as he locked the door Bourne leapt into action, first stripping and laying his clothes out by the heater. Second was his weapon, while sitting in front of the heater he quickly took the bullets out of the clip, dumped the water out and sat the ammo near the heater and stripped down the weapon, he wiped the moving parts with some motor oil he found on a windowsill and put it back together, he did this in under two minutes.

Next he found a pair of needle nose pliers and tried to remove the bullet from his back. He couldn't really reach it; the bullet hit right on the shoulder blade which may have saved his life. He was still trying to reach it when Red came back; he had been gone less than twenty minutes, surprising Bourne.

"Damn Hoss, why didn't you tell me you caught one?" he said concerned. "You got cash on you? I know a guy…"

"I got some… depends on how much."

"I'll ask…" he pulled out his phone and dialed."Hey man, this is Ole Red… A buddy of mine caught one, what are you running these days? Oh, it's on the top left of his back on the shoulder blade, looks like a thirty-eight or a 9 mill." He looked at Bourne, "Five hundred, without locals… he's out." Bourne nodded, "Yeah, we are up stairs. See you soon brother. He'll be here in twenty minutes; he called in a prescription and said to have the money on the table. Would you prefer generic or does your insurance cover name brands?" he asked as he handed him a plastic bottle of rum.

So, his friend Stevie who was a retired army nurse pulled the bullet out, stitched the wound and dressed it. He had pain killers and antibiotics that cost him extra, but were obviously worth the money. Jason paid his normal rates plus five hundred extra so that he could go out drinking until he 'blacked out and forgot what he did that night'.

Every fiber of his being was telling him to move on, to run, to hide, but even the great Jason Bourne was in fact a human being. His batteries were dead and if they sent a girl scout to arrest him right now, he wouldn't be able to put up a fight. He slept for days, only waking to urinate what was mostly blood and eat soup that Red force fed him.

Three or four days later Red kicked his cot awaking him up, he had learned not to touch him while he was sleeping. "Hey Hoss, wake up!" he said in a concerned tone that made Bourne jump to his feet. "You're on the news man…" he pointed at an old picture of David Webb on the TV and he turned it up full blast.

_"FBI agents arrested several senior CIA officials today in connection with the broadening scandal enveloping Washington. Assassination program code-named "Blackbriar" was exposed by a former assassin named David Webb. The program reportedly targeted US Citizens in some cases... CIA Deputy Director Pamela Landy produced explosive documents for the Senate Committee indicating "Blackbriar" was authorized at the highest levels of government. Webb, who was known inside the intelligence community, as "Jason Bourne" jumped from the fourteenth floor of the CIA facility where he was trained and into the East River below. While experts say it would be nearly impossible to survive the fall, despite three days of search efforts, his body has still not been recovered..."_

"You're a Fed? I thought I was a good judge of character…" Red sounded aghast…

Jason rubbed his hands through his hair, "I was told I would be helping my country, they lied. I _love_ my country, but now I hate my government…" he said with true remorse.

"Shit, welcome to the club kid, we got jackets. We'll have you wearing colors yet… Still, you've been here too long. Shits going to get real… You are on an island after all."

Bourne was looking at a helmet on the fridge and asked in his best Schwarzenegger voice, "How much for your clothes, your boots, and a motorcycle?" He paid cash for his gear and for a '69 Triumph without paperwork, which red pronounced as the same style bike that 'the Fonz' rode. It was rough looking but ran well.

As he got ready to ride off he asked Red, "What are Sophia's chances?" Red shook his head sadly. Bourne handed him a huge knot of bills, "go rescue your sled and the rest is a gift to the make a wish fund… take her to swim with the dolphins or something…"

Red was genuinely moved, "you are a righteous man, good luck to you Mr. Bourne…"


	3. Chapter 3: Mr Eagle Scout

Chapter 3

October 1999

"Look at what they make you give indeed…" muttered a man's voice that had a thick English accent, repeating her words. Nicky walked back out into the hall in time to see 'candidate number eight' dressing. She had yet to see herself in the mirror, but seeing this poor man made her almost want to throw up. He was very tall at 6'3" and he was black and blue from head to toe, including his face, of which she had been spared. His testicles were insanely swollen but his lower body was covered in some kind of milky film, which she suddenly realized was his skin when she heard him quip, "Margret could you be a dear a draw me a hot bath?" His back and lower body had been exposed to water so long the outer layer of skin was peeling off. His pupils were blown completely open and his lips were so swollen, from being beaten, that it looked comical.

"Ah, Professor this is the other candidate I spoke of, Nicolette Parsons… this is Professor Roy Hinkley…"

"Pleased to meet you Ms. Parsons," he spoke with an English accent with a bit of cockney.

"The pleasures all mine Professor… and Nicky is fine by me."

"…fine by me as well, I must say…"

"Ever the charmer Professor; come now sir, let's introduce you to our host and then get you to the infirmary. I'll be back in just a moment Nicolette."

Nicky and the professor spent the next few nights in the infirmary and had plenty of time to get to know each other better, at least as much as two people could without divulging too much information about their past. They were not instructed to keep their old lives secret, but the rule seemed unspoken and it was good practice to work on generalities. The Professor had been 'interviewed' twice as long as her. He started in the light room and then was moved to a room that they kept totally dark and instead of noise to keep him awake they amplified the noise you made yourself through speakers. The next step was a room that he was dropped into; it was like a pool and had about three feet of water in it. It made it too shallow to swim but too deep to lie down. The walls sloped inward towards the center of the room making it impossible to lean against the walls; this made it difficult to sleep without drowning.

Several others joined them on the second day and they figured out that apparently the interview was over when you killed someone, either through escaping or finally they would simply put a gun in your hand and tell you to kill someone with no clue as to who they were. The good doctor told her several years later that the guard she had knocked out, the one that had been nice to her, was killed by one of the others since he failed in his duties. The guards themselves were in training to work at top secret facilities.

Nicky was pleasantly surprised by the number of female candidates until she realized that she hated all of them. They were all lacking in some way. They were either: petty, pretentious, bitter, or cruel. It was usually more than one of those characteristics, if not all of them. It seriously made her wonder if she was like that too. At least none of them were airheads.

The closest thing to a friend she found amongst them was a Japanese woman in her early twenties named Reina Tanaka, who was one of the four women in her 'cell'. She was stern and quiet, but it was the brooding type of quiet. One day they had both retreated from the others and were studying in the balcony overlooking the reading room when Reina spoke without being prompted, which was a rarity. "You think you are better than them all don't you?" she asked without looking up, she didn't even stop reading. Nicky noted immediately that Reina excluded herself from that list, because of course she thought of herself as the best.

"Not in the way you mean…"

"What do you mean by that Parsons?"

"They think that they are better than everyone else in every way, I know that I have weaknesses and flaws, that in essence, makes me better…"

"Wow that is deep, are you a Shinto…" it wasn't a question and she even tried to say it in a tone that was not condescending, which made it different than everything else she had ever said to Nicky. She actually stopped reading and walk over to join Nicky at the railing, watching the other girls; the males were in physical training, carrying light poles and whatnot. "I can tell you your greatest strength and your greatest weakness, because we are polar opposites, which is why you are subconsciously drawn to me…"

Nicky smirked, "Okay, I'll bite. What is my greatest strength and what is your greatest weakness?"

"Look at them all… You could tell me right now what they are all thinking and feeling. You know their hopes, fears, dreams and nightmares. I have no clue. I have spent my entire life not caring about other people, now that I want to actually know what they are thinking I can't figure them out. I find it infuriating."

Nicky smirked, "Okay, what is my greatest weakness and your strength?"

In a flurry Reina slapped her so hard on the cheek that the noise resounded throughout the hall, causing everyone to look up at them. Nicky's mouth hung open just as Reina slapped her again, harder. "Here is a tip Parson's, I am going to keep slapping until you stop me…" She feinted slapping with her right hand which Nicky moved to block, and then Reina slapped her with her left hand. "I am a reactionary Parsons; I sum up all possible scenarios as soon as I know the conditions. Only about 1 in 10 people are reactors, the rest are rubberneckers; they sit by and watch things happen, unable to respond. Not only are you a rubbernecker, but you are in the bottom percentile. I don't think you will ever be able to fully correct it. It will be the death of you if you don't… You need to learn to react and not stand there dumbfounded. I'm actually not trying to be cruel; if I despised you I wouldn't tell you."

Nicky was shocked but in an effort to not be a rubbernecker, "thank you, really Reina. You're absolutely right. I am like that; I will really try to work on it…"

The trainees were broken up into eight person cells, four men and four women that all trained together. Once a skill was nearly mastered they would then compete against members of other cells since they had no knowledge of the other groups skill level and abilities it made the final fights much more interesting.

Generally speaking they were forbidden to socialize with other cells in order to maintain a proper training atmosphere. The other house rules seemed simple enough, no intoxicants, no 'unauthorized' sexual activity, no leaving your room after lights out, stay out of restricted areas, no gambling, fighting, no contact with the outside world, etc. But rules as simple as these are asinine for people that you are training to become assassins and spies.

So, on the first Friday after their training started, Nicky sat on the back patio after lights out watching Reina sneak into the woods with the cute Nordic guy from cell 2, six men from 2 other cells were running into the woods as well, to find a town she was sure. Castel from her cell and the Professor, who was in cell 4, were playing dice and gambling little squares of chocolate they were all given after dinner. She meanwhile had her watch sitting on what looked like a phone book, holding the pages open, as she held a big stone wheel up to the sky.

"…and you are doing what, exactly?" asked a smug voice from behind her.

She sighed in a very irritated way, at the person, not the question. "Good evening Mr. Bourne, I thought you of all people would know, Mr. Eagle Scout. I am finding out where the hell we are."

He and Castel were two of the men in her cell and she despised them both for different reasons. Bourne's smug demeanor might have been forgivable under most circumstances, but not when he had been sitting on her chest or back all week lecturing her on the finer points of the manly art of wrestling. She knew judo, but was forbidden to use it while wrestling, mixed fighting would come later apparently. She failed to see the point since there was no way she could out muscle him. She had learned to hate his smug, condescending tone already.

"I wish you would stop calling me that. Here, a peace offering Parsons…" he handed her an uncorked bottle of wine. She sniffed it and rubbed her sleeve over the end of it before taste testing it, apparently approving she drank deeply from it.

"Wow, slow down. Wait, are you even twenty one?" he asked aghast. She gave him her best incredulous eye roll. "That proves you aren't, give that back…"

"No way, you don't give someone a peace offering then take it away, besides I've lived in France. Everyone drinks wine there because the water is awful. We aren't in America anyway." She took another huge swig of wine and handed the bottle back.

"Where are we then and what is that thing?"

"It's like an astrolabe; I think it's Bronze Age maybe. Come hold this and I'll tell you in a minute, my arms are tired of holding it up." She handed him the large stone disc about the size of a large dinner plate.

"I've seen them before and they look nothing like this… Where did you get it anyway?"

"You saw nautical ones; this one only works on land. It was hanging in the south corridor near the computer lab. They probably don't even know what it is... I need you to hold it absolutely still right here," she motioned to an area a foot in front of her. He started to sit directly behind her, "please don't sit there, people might get the wrong idea, please sit beside me." They sat with their legs intertwined as he used his knee as a tripod.

"Yes, because having people know that we are using a Bronze Age device that was stolen from a restricted area to extrapolate the location of a high tech covert CIA black ops training facility is far safer than a young couple stargazing," he offer sarcastically. "Besides isn't that only good for longitude?" She clamped her pencil in her mouth and looked at her watch and her calculations again, then looked at the phone book. "What's the book for?"

"Astrolabe's used in ships or planes can only be used to find longitude. That they can't be used for latitude is a misconception. They can if you are not in motion, meaning on land, and you have a Nautical Almanac as well as the accurate time. I must be rusty though, this thing is putting us in the middle of the English Channel, so unless Ireland moved..."

"We must be on a Channel Island," a voice from behind them offered. They looked around and the Professor was standing two feet from them eating his ill gotten chocolates. "Nicolette?" he offered her some, which she accepted. He clearly didn't offer any to Bourne, nor did anyone offer to introduce anyone else.

"Sorry?" she asked.

"There are small islands off the coast of France that are under English rule. We are most likely on Jersey Island, it's the largest. The ornithology of the region puts us near the French coast, which supports your calculations."

"So, I guess they drugged us and moved us, they really went all out…" Bourne contemplated. Suddenly there was a huge awkward silence that could be cut with a knife. "Well, I'm going to head in. He handed her the wine. You want me to put this back?" he held up the Astrolabe and she shrugged her indifference, "I want to check out the computer lab anyway…" He left thinking that they clearly wanted to be alone.

"I thought he was never going to leave…" she sighed.

"Oh really… I wasn't entirely certain. That was the warmest cold shoulder I've ever seen then…"

"Well, good sir would you like to see my coldest warm shoulder?" she turned away from him, which actually moved them closer together, placing his front to her back. She pursued her lips and mocked looking at the sky to the far left as if ignoring him, which exposed her now, bruise free porcelain neck. He felt very much like a vampire as he moved to kiss it. She said softly, "You know that usually I am very picky and quite reserved, but what's really the point of getting to know anyone here. Everything either of us will say about ourselves would be a lie."

He breathed warmly onto her neck as he spoke, "I think we are both a good enough judge of character to know that we would get on well enough," he said as his accent came out thicker than ever. "You know the big stairs at the other end has very nice landscaping on the other side and can't be seen on the cameras or through the windows…"

"You don't say? After three months of my life being video recorded for every second, that is quite possibly the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me," she said as she stood up and took him by the hand. "I always did have a thing for my Professors…"


	4. Chapter 4: Homecoming

Chapter 4

Present day

Nicky Parson had seen the Jason Bourne story on the news two days ago in Barcelona, Spain. Since then she had been working her way back to the US. She took a train to France and then took the tunnel to England and then a ferry to Ireland then booked a flight on the Iceland Express that flies between Belfast and Reykjavik, Iceland. Even though thirty thousand people fly out of Iceland every day, it did little to ease her trepidation getting on the plane to New York. It was 2,500 miles to New York and once she was on the plane, she was trapped. Her only hope was that the command structure of the CIA was so shaken that by the time her alias came across someone's desk that she would at least be on the ground. But, Jason was in New York and he was undoubtedly injured and she would be damned if was going to sit safely on the other side of the world while he was blowing the CIA wide open.

Bourne had been many things to her over the last decade. When she thought of the name Jason Bourne she felt such an overwhelming wave of various emotions that she almost felt shattered. They had been friends and enemies in every since of both words. She had loved him and despised him. She had been his willing and unwilling sex partner. They had been cell mates and later he had been her asset and she had been his handler. He had saved her life and he had given her a nervous breakdown when she was certain he was going to but a bullet in her head. He had elevated her career to dizzying heights only to completely and totally destroy it. He had killed Castel her greatest tormentor, but also he had killed the Professor, one of her greatest loves. He was a force of complete and total chaos in her life, but he was also the last remaining constant. Everyone else from Treadstone was dead, hiding, in prison or an asylum.

Iceland was a good place to enter the US from because it was close and it was a stopover for thrifty spenders, so she booked her trip through a travel site and got a package with a rental car and a cheap hotel, even though she would never use them. The clown sitting next to her, really, he worked as a clown, kept hitting on her the whole flight. At least he had a unique new set of pick up lines, she had never been asked to a guy's hotel to 'make balloon animals' before. He also bragged that he was 'a furry', she at first thought he meant his back was hairy until he explained it. She had to focus all of her training to keep from throwing up all over him. She had to channel her inner Reina in order to fawn over him so that they could go through customs together. She knew she had a higher chance of making it through if she didn't look alone and besides this fine example of the masculine mystique would have all eyes and ears on him. Clown or not, this ass had been a used car salesmen at some point and she didn't even know they still made Brute aftershave. She knew the stewardess kept giving her the sympatric 'do you want another seat' look, but she couldn't afford to stand out.

She cleared customs and took a cab to a storage unit she maintained with actual real personal effects as well as clothes, money, weapons, and ID's. She grabbed a drop bag of clothes, toiletries, cash and two pistols. She got a P224 Sig Sauer which had always been a favorite of hers and a Walther P22 which was only a little smaller but weighed a lot less but she had a silencer for it. She grabbed ammo and several styles of holsters for different occasions, why did women always require so many accessories? She looked at her old purse that had her CIA badge and ID in it as well as her real passport, a set of keys, her driver's license and some pictures and debated taking it or not. Strictly speaking it was illegal for a CIA agent to carry a weapon and badge on US soil, but she was pretty sure that she was going to be doing something illegal the whole time she was here anyway. It also had her Grandfathers watch, she had forgotten what she had done with it, and she quickly put it on and wound it relishing in the familiar feeling. She rejoiced that the cabbie had actually waited, she had promised him fifty dollars to wait for her. Now came the hard part, did she try to get to Landy or into the CIA mainframes to see where Bourne was, or did she try to find him on her own? There were places that she could check, dead drops and caches left over from Treadstone. But even if he remembered them, he would not think that she would go to them because he had forgotten them. That held true for anyone he may have known that would have helped him. That is if he was still here. She felt that rested on whether or not he was actually shot. If he was and he took that kind of fall he would need to lay up somewhere. Clueless as to where to go next, she did what she always did in situations like this… she went for a cappuccino. So, she sat enjoying her favorite type of coffee, although it paled in comparison to the Parisian and Italian fare to which she had grown so accustomed, as she brain stormed for ideas. She had come here to search of Bourne, but it was very difficult considering that he was on about a million websites now. She even tried Facebooking out of desperation and quickly became embroiled in the soap opera like antics of her cousins; they were ten years older and still going through the same drama only now with children in tow. She even searched for herself and found that there had been a memorial page set up for her where people came to post nice things about her and she smiled as she looked through them all, the poor souls… Constance Lindbergh had died a fake death and Nicolette Parsons had been forcibly ejected from the ashes. Now that life was all but destroyed too and she was forced to live the hollow lives of a dozen other fake passports from six different countries. She had a wonderful time reading about herself until she got to a post from her evil stepmother, who was almost her age by the way, "that Bitch!" she exclaimed in a very uncharacteristic display of vulgarity. Her real mother and father had raised her from better stock. Some people turned and looked at her and she snapped, "Well she shouldn't speak ill of the dead!" it took a lot of effort to not slam the laptop closed and she went and hailed a cab. She needed a nice five star room, a massage, new clothes, and a wakeup call for tomorrow, she had just figured out one possible way to get a message to Bourne. As she got in the cab she realized that not only was she holding the Walther in her hand inside her coat pocket but she had subconsciously slipped the safety off, she quickly flipped it back on. The cabbie asked her where to, "I have my husband's wallet and I kind of hate him right now, take me shopping…" 


	5. Chapter 5: Eulogies and Obituaries

Chapter 5

1999

Jason Bourne wasn't sure why it bothered him to see Nicky Parsons pull the Englishman away by the hand, but it did. She wasn't his type at all, he liked the wholesome 'girl next door' or farm girl type and clearly Nicky was upper crust that was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and her very own trust fund. She was also way more intelligent than he preferred, not that he liked simpletons, but she was a genius and there would never be a simple conversation with her. She basically hated him for no reason; she had disliked him even before he had to spar with her this week. He didn't like her personality which seemed to come in three flavors: haughty, brooding, and sulking. Her lips had developed a permanent frown, even when she smiled, it appeared as a sneer. Something made her likable though, almost like a little sister; maybe it was just that she was so young.

He looked down and realized that he was holding her watch still and he looked at it as a means of distraction on the way to replace the Astrolabe. It was very odd for a watch, he thought it had a normal compass ring around the outside, but instead of directions it was covered in odd six digit numbers. The inside of the watch had an odd inner ring on the face and was made by Longines. It looked like a very old men's watch but had a newer smallish band on it. Flipping it over it had an engraving that said Charles Lindbergh. He had thought that she owned it until he saw the name, maybe she lifted it from somewhere around here and it need to be returned as well.

He found where she had taken the Astrolabe from and replaced it on the wall, it really just looked like art to him and he could have walked by it a thousand times and not realized it was a tool. He found the computer lab and was surprised to find it unlocked until he saw that two others were already here, their heads jerking up when he opened the door.

He sat at a free terminal and spent an hour or so catching up on news from around the world, it didn't seem like anything had changed. He moved to his hometown paper and stumbled across something that floored him. He researched it some more and even printed it out and read it and couldn't believe it. He walked out of the room in a daze and back out onto the patio, he wasn't entirely sure how long he stood there watching the moon and listening to the insects as they ate him alive.

"Waiting up for me dad?" Parsons quipped from behind him, although she blushed furiously in betrayal of herself. When he didn't answer she walked over to him, "What, did you go running? You're drenched… Hey, Earth to Bourne?" she touched his shoulder and it was cold and she realized he was sheet white. He lifted the piece of paper and started reading it again for the hundredth time. "Jesus Jason, what is it?"

"I'm dead. This says I'm dead, it's my obituary…"

"Well, it must be a mistake, well yeah obviously, but… wait you don't think that they…"

"Yeah, I think that is exactly what they did. I believe that we are all believed to be dead. Come on Lindbergh baby, let's check for yours," he said handing her the watch. Of course the watch was hers, how else would she be able to plot a course like that. She was either a pilot or learned how as a point of family pride. He tried not to notice her tousled hair and grass clippings on her clothes as he followed her.

"Why are you sneaking, practice?" he asked her.

"We're breaking the rules…"

"The rules are there in case someone gets hurt, or causes trouble, shows up hung-over, stuff like that. This isn't the nunnery they aren't going to micromanage to that extent."

"Oh," she mumbled feeling silly. The castle was very quiet and when they got back to the lab it was locked, which she picked. To his questioning look, "You try living with nuns for ten years, you'll learn too…" Her death came up very fast, "Wow, I am so glad I wrote my evil step mother out of my will before I left." She printed out a copy of hers as well. They locked the door behind them as they left and snuck back to their rooms, neither slept that night as both of them were dwelling on their former lives all that leaving it behind meant.

The massive castle like mansion was a very quiet place the next day as the day drew on and word spread about their premature deaths. Some people like the Professor clearly didn't understand beforehand that his death would be faked. Others like Castel rejoiced in the idea of a fresh start. Regardless someone concocted the idea of having a midnight mass where they could read their own eulogies or obituaries. They were to meet outside the main entrance where there was a huge brass brazier in the center of the circular driveway.

Someone had filled the brazier with oil and lit it up and the people that chose to attend got up and read what they wanted about their services. Some people had fun with it, wearing black clothes and veils, one woman joked that she even put on underwear to which everyone laughed. No one really paid absolute attention to everyone, mainly just their friends, it had a very 'summer camp fire / horror story' feeling to it.

There was a vote going on for the most gruesome death, Castel was currently winning the worst death and shortest column. His obituary was just one or two lines, he was survived by no one and his body was buried in potter's field, having gone unclaimed. He had been mauled by a bear while camping alone in the forest.

Bourne read his, "… was survived by his mother, two sisters and twin brother. He had been an Academic All American and All State at Tight End." He glanced at Parson's and laughed, "…an Eagle Scout and a Marine Recon Captain turned Navy Seal. My brother was quoted in the paper as saying that a twin often felt it when their double died, but he felt like his brother was still out there…" he sounded solemn. "I was killed in a 'training exercise' the paper even put it in brackets.

Parsons threw a stone at him; "They must have seen you train on the driving course…" everyone laughed."I knew you were an Eagle Scout!" She went next, "…her solo flight over the Atlantic turned tragic when on her return trip, she reported that her engine was on fire. She completed a successful water landing but radioed in her last transmission that she was seriously injured. Despite a two week search no sign of the craft or heiress were ever found. At least they let me fly there; I was approached in Paris… I suppose they really crashed my plane…"

Castle gave a rare laugh, "Not good enough, princess… bear mauling beats plane crash." Their deaths were all alone and gruesome. Reina's was the most tragic; she supposedly committed suicide by jumping off of the roof of her father's global headquarters, leaving a note that she could no longer handle the pressure.

A week later her father had committed seppuku, ritual suicide where the person disemboweled themselves and was then beheaded by their second in command. "He always pushed me so hard, always looked down on me for not being a son, which was the one thing I had nothing to do with, and could never change… he always acted like he hated me, oh papa…" Nicky had shamefully thought that the Ice Queen was completely devoid of emotion; she clearly blamed herself for his death and had a very rough time of it the next few weeks. Both of them finding out that the other also came from a massively affluent family led them to give the other a bit more respect. They both shared the same struggles growing up and knew that the other at least understood their point of view.

At the end of the first month some recruits were culled and Nicky found out that she should have been one of them, having completely failed the wrestling section due to Jason Bourne. She had never failed at anything in her life; she had been accelerated through every level of education and had graduated from medical school a year before she should have gotten out of high school. Dr. Albert Hirsch had a very grave conversation with her over the price of failure and that if she had another wholesale failure she would be 'culled'. The way he said culled left little to the imagination, apparently failing the program was a death sentence. Shirley he must have known that if she were to tell the others there would be an all out uprising. Then again he knew her inside and out, literally. He knew she wouldn't tell, at least not now. She also knew people normally didn't get a warning; he was grooming her from something special.

It was clear that they had already begun to shape them for different types of assignments based on their predispositions. There were also refresher classes for lack of a better term. Bourne for instance spent time swimming, diving and repelling where as Nicky was regulated to Infirmary duty and working as a Psychiatric assistance to Dr. Hirsch. The infirmary work was technically new to her; she did have a medical degree but had yet to complete her four years of residency. She received plenty of practice on how to set bones, take x-rays, reduce separated shoulders and feet, stitch wounds and while no one actually got shot she was trained extensively on how to operate and stabilize as an army medic would in the field which was different altogether than what would be done in a hospital. She learned the pharmacology involved with working with the agents in order to research and administer medication to them properly. They also taught her all different ways to kill someone that was hospitalized and get away with it, as well as ways to combine medications to cause 'accidental death'.

Their second term of classes consisted of pistol training, driving, knife fighting, and observation. Then other things were added to work on weaknesses and based on gender. Observation sounded easy and was at first but as the month wore on it got harder and harder. Such as someone going into your room and moving one thing to place a 'bomb' or put poison in something, or what were the license plates of the six cars you drove on the range last Monday. Other things were used to pick up on inconsistencies in the present, such as interrogating a gardener and noticing that his hands were too soft to be a real gardener. They would each practice playing a role each week as well, learning to blend in.

Nicky was one of the few that had a full physically fitness regimen that had to be completed, since she had never been in the military she was one of the few recruits in what was considered poor physical shape, where as many of the others had to spend time in language lab and college classes. She knew English, French, and Spanish at an expert level and was fluent in Aramaic and Hindi. She knew tourist level German and Russian.

Women were given classes in attracting the right target in order to get close enough to poison them. They would all be given different pictures and videos of their target and were supposed to dress and act in a way to get that persons attention and get them to leave the room or to take a drink from them. If they failed to get their attention they had to keep mingling until they did and if someone else was vying for their attention they had to humor them. Nicky excelled at knowing what to wear and was always out early. Reina however was dreadful at it, always there all night long.

"What am I doing wrong here Parsons?" she asked in exasperation towards the end of the first month as she was getting ready.

Nicky had been lying on Reina's bed reading an old magazine and walked over to her, "Who's your date?" Reina hand her the targets folder and she read it over he was a Texan oil tycoon that hit it big with some type of new off shore drilling process involving shoals. Hobbies include high stakes poker games. "Okay, you look ridiculous. Lose everything but the jeans. The plaid shirt, boots, and belt buckle don't fit. They don't have a lot hoe downs in Japan. You do want to look like you're working class new money though. Try a white shirt, like a men's undershirt. Simple heels, a large single diamond necklace and your hair is too perfect, mess it up. Get a shiny belt buckle, but normal sized.

"Shouldn't you be getting ready to Parsons?"

"I am ready," she laughed. She was wearing no make-up, an old zip down hooded sweat shirt, a black faded shirt that said 'All your base are belong to us' and old purple plaid skater shorts called Skids.

"You're joking, right?"

"No," she pulled out her folder. "Sam Dubois, an American prodigy in computer software. Look at the poor thing, he hasn't got a prayer. I figure in a room full of drop dead looking women, he's going to be cowering in the corner somewhere. I need to look approachable."

"Damn, you're right. You are good at this…"

"Start teaching me Japanese and we'll call it even…"

"君達の基地は、全て"

"…and that means?"

"…all your base are belong to us," they both laughed.

The male visitors were wealthy men and women from all different walks of life who thought that they were visiting a house for women who had been in Playboy that were looking for 'nice' men to meet. They weren't required to sleep with them but it was highly suggested as practice. Nicky never felt the need to, but she actually got along great with Dubois and she did invite him up to her room on the third night. Everything he did was awkward but in a cute way.

He gave her a platonic gift when he left, a device he said was hitting the market next year and he was beta testing them for his job. She wore that first generation IPod ragged and used all the cash she could get her hands on to buy stock in Apple, she didn't need money here anyway. She made a small fortune buying in at eighteen dollars a share, technically it was insider trading but she was a spy after all. She always stayed in contact with him over the years and was one of the few normal people that she had regular interactions with.

Things went on like that for a long time, training during the day and every weekend a fake dinner party. Some of the trainings started crossing over, like driving and shooting at the same time, both with a passenger shooting and the driver. Bourne was a horrible driver, which she relished in. He almost never finished the course due to damage to his vehicle, much to the chagrin of the instructors.


	6. Chapter 6: Doctor, Doctor

Chapter 6

Present day

Jason Bourne got off his bike near the hot dog vendor and left his helmet on as he ordered 3 with different toppings and a coke he took the tray of food and walked a short way into the park and experimented with the hot dogs, he couldn't remember what he liked on his New York hotdogs. They were his first solid food since jumping off the building. He tried to reduce his facial exposure by keeping his helmet on whenever possible, but didn't want to draw attention to himself, which meant he had to stay close to the bike.

After lunch he drove around the city learning the ins and outs, especially around the hotel he was staying in. Riding through Times Square he saw something that completely stunned him to the point of almost crashing head long into the back of a cab. A video of Nicky Parsons was on one of the huge TVs on one of the buildings; she was on the news. He darted around the taxi and pulled in between two parallel parked cars. Her face flashed off the screen just as he looked up. He backed the bike out and returned to his hotel room.

He didn't need to flip long to find it on one of the twenty-four hour news networks… _"Today was supposed to mark one of the final days in the settlement of the Estate of Constance Lindbergh when the doors to the sealed session opened and in strode the heiress herself. She went missing over nine years ago after her plane went down in the North Atlantic, after seven years she had been declared legally dead and the estate has been wrapped up in court for over two years. Her step mother Syndee Lindbergh vehemently stated that this wasn't really her even though she showed up with her expired driver's license, passport, house keys, pictures, and a watch the belonged to Mr. Lindbergh himself. When the judge asked in a less than cordial manner where she had been all these years, she asked to approach the bench alone and off the record. The judge listened for another minute and she showed him additional ID's and paperwork and he declare her to be the real McCoy and dismissed the case! Folks you can't make this stuff up… here is Ms. Lindbergh from outside the court house…_

Nicky was answering questions that he couldn't hear,_ "…what's the first thing I'm going to do? I already did it! I went to pay myself my respects…" _the crowd laughed_. "Am I angry at my step mother? No. You cannot hate a snake, just for being a snake… okay well I guess you can_," more laughter…_ "Really, Syndee needs to earn her money; wow I better watch what I say or she'll be trying to get me into bed…" _theywere snickering."_Well," _she checked her watch which seemed to trigger something in his mind,_ "I may not have been born yesterday, but I was dead yesterday so if you nice people will excuse me I need to go have some fun…"_ they zoomed out from her face, her hair was very long now, but he knew it had to be a wig but it was a very good one, and it was her natural color. She was wearing a very expensive looking white trench coat and she looked down as she walked down the courthouse steps and when she looked up she sneered slightly.

With a flash of light and a wince of unbearable pain his mind was throwing him backwards into the past. He heard the door creak ominously as he opened it and made a mental note of it. He saw Dr. Hirsch behind a massive desk, a woman was bent close talking in his ear, and she glanced up and straightened. He was shocked at seeing Nicky next to him. Her hair was its natural blond and very long, pulled back in a ponytail and she was wearing a white doctor's coat. She was very young, younger than he could ever remember her being, their eyes met and hers went as cold as ice as they narrowed to slits and a slight sneer formed.

There was another flash and he was sitting in a room in blistering agony. The room was all metal and glass and smelled like a hospital. His arms were strapped to the chair and Nicky was kneeling at his feet once again in a white doctor's coat. "I can make it all stop Bourne all you have to do is tell me. Open your mouth and use that tongue for something besides bragging."

"…you wish…" he panted. She sneered and there was searing pain and a loud crunch as she did something to his foot and he was gone again.

This time he opened a door and stepped into a very small darkroom shut the door and fumbled for the second door in the dark it opened into what looked like a control room with a window looking down into a room where a man was strapped to a chair. Nicky was standing next to a control panel, there was a red light bulb in the room, other than that the only light came through the one way mirror.

[What is your name?] she asked into the mic.

"_Desh Bouksani,"_ he said, lying successfully.

[What is your favorite color?] She jumped noticing Bourne for the first time. "Jesus Bourne, knock next time. Her hair was shorter than the last memory and she looked a little older, her eyes were the biggest change, they twinkled when she looked at him.

"Red," the subject mumbled. She pressed a button and shocked him.

Bourne suddenly felt overwhelming rage at seeing her doing that, "What the hell are you doing? You're running their tests for them now?"

Her eyes narrowed to slits, "Oh, you have morality issues with this, but you can kill someone with your pinky finger? You're an assassin for Christ's sake, what did they do to you while I was gone, a full spinal removal?" She spoke into the mic angrily, [What is the capitol of Assyria?]

Jason started to say something in anger, and then stopped and took a different approach, "Look, I came to tell you I have been placed. I leave in the morning… I don't know when or if we'll see each other again…"

_"Assur,"_ mumbled the man in the chair.

She had been gaping at Bourne and then gaped at the man in the chair, she looked at Bourne, "Was it?"

"Was Assur the capitol of Assyria? How the hell should I know? Wait… you're asking this poor guy questions you don't know the answers to?"

She spoke into the mic while glaring at Bourne, [Good, now go and think over your mistakes…] and she buzzed him out of the chair. She turned back to Bourne, "But, I just got back. It's been over a year and we haven't even had time to see each other."

"Yeah, I guess you've been busy…" he turned and left.

Bourne snapped back to reality. She had known Hirsch, she ran his damn tests. She lied to him in the café, now it made sense. She hesitated before tapping the photo and pointing out Daniels and then stating that she didn't know the other man. Then when she stated that he didn't remember anything she had smiled for a split second. She had been Hirsch's protégé, Conklin's field commander, and head of operations for Daniels. Hell, he wouldn't doubt if she really reported directly to Abbot or better yet Vosen or… Kramer.

She was working for Kramer. It made since as to why both Abbot and Vosen kept putting her in harm's way, they had found her out and they were trying to get rid of her. Kramer picked her out and groomed her to burn them all and bring the whole house of cards down from the inside if anything went wrong. She had pitted Bourne against the assets, he killed most of them. Bourne confronts Conklin at the safe house and lets him live, only to get executed in an alley which Bourne was blamed for, she probably did it herself. She put Zorn onto Abbot and she would have done Zorn herself if he won, Abbot did. Pit Abbot and Bourne against each other, Abbot incriminates himself then she pits Landy against Abbot hoping he would kill her, he kills himself instead. She outs Daniels so Vosen takes him out. Then Bourne, Landy, Vosen, Hirsch and one of the last assets are all thrown into the mix together at the training facility in New York and all of them live? What are the odds of that happening? Five of the six remaining people in the know all together. What she failed to see is if they were all gone then Kramer will just have to get rid of Nicky.

He had understood her message to him perfectly, but others may have as well. He wasn't sure how many people knew about their former lives, but he had to get there fast in order to see what they were planning.


	7. Chapter 7: Gently

Chapter 7

1999

The months wore on and the training not only intensified but more and more was crammed on them at once. Almost everyone was beaten down to the point of not wanting to sneak around on Friday nights. The most anyone was up to was sneaking out for a cigarette or glass of wine on the patio. Their only real time off was Saturday morning for the women and Sunday night for the men.

Nicky knew the reason behind this was to give the sexes as little time to intermingle as possible. She hadn't seen the professor on a personal level in months, but not for lack of trying. Everything happened on this island for a reason. Someone always conveniently interrupted them, or was using their spot already, or one of them was too hurt or tired to do anything physical. She began to give into the Saturday night shenanigans more and more, she knew this was the intended effect, but there was only so much celibacy a person could stand. It wasn't as if the men were unattractive either, for the most part. Sometimes they got to pick their targets, the girls choosing based on how well they did on past performances.

For Halloween they had a special treat planned, the phrasing of which put no one's mind at ease. Finally they told them that they were going to have a 'live fire exercise' where they were really supposed to really drug their targets while out of the site of others. They all had various devices used to employ various toxins on their person or in their rooms.

They all dressed up in costumes and she was told that her target would be a man dressed in black, but not Zorro, which was someone else's target. She was wearing a black satanic looking robe and hood with half of what appeared to be a goblin or green devil. She wore black gloves, boots, and lipstick.

She arrived at the party fashionably late as her status dictated. She tried to hug the sidelines of the party and saw that her costume was beyond conservative, women are such tramps at Halloween. At least now she understood where the trick in trick or treat came from now. But no where there did she see a man dressed in black, she circled the party that consisted of the three rooms and the hall, she check the outside patio and the hedge rows with no luck. She returned for the fifth time to the champagne table and returned to her usual spot in a dark corner when she saw a small note where she had been placing her glass earlier in the evening. On it was a single word, "Gently…" What was he playing at?

"Wow, you're still here?" ask Reina from beside her. Her rendition of Elvira was the next most conservative costume. "So, where is Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll? You might have scared him off with that mask…"

"Your nipple is hanging out and you got the roles backwards…"

"Oh, thanks, you are a Doctor though right," she probed as she adjusted her wardrobe malfunction.

"Nice try. What does this mean?" she handed Reina the note.

"Gently… It means he obviously knows you. It's not easy sharing a wall with you sometimes by the way. What's he dressed as again?"

"It said he'd be in black, but not Zorro."

"Did it say The Man in Black?" she asked.

"Yeah, I think so. Why?"

"Have you never seen the Princes Bride?"

"No, a child prodigy isn't afforded a lot of TV time…"

"It's a character, The Man in Black. I think this means his lying in your bed… there is this scene… oh, never mind. Go, go, go… he's probably unconscious already from boredom."

"Wait, how does he know which room is mine?"

"It's been the only empty one all night would be the first clue… Go!"

It was with much trepidation that she turned the knob to her own room, she felt like she should swing in the window or something after all this time. He was indeed lying there on her bed, which was still made. A single candle was illuminating the room. His eyes were closed and his fingers were intertwined and lying on his stomach. He was dressed in a black swashbucklers outfit along with a mask that covered his hair and face. She slipped inside and silently closed the door behind her and locked it.

She said in French, as this was to be her characters' native tongue, [Forgive me monsieur…]

He cut her off, [What hideous sin have you committed lately?]

[I do not often attend the cinema, I knew not to what you were referring…]

"You are from Bordeaux, yes?" he asked in English with a British accent.

[I am sorry, monsieur. I do not speak English.]

[What are you dressed as mademoiselle? You should come closer, or else you were wrong to lock the door behind you.]

[Monsieur Faust…]

[Ah, a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil. He exchanged his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures…]

[Quite a scholar yourself, I see. Are you certain about the last part,] she asked walking to the edge of the bed.

[Yes, quite sure… What have we here?] he asked as he raised hem of her robe with the sword that had been at his side.

[My modesty to be sure,] she said as she slipped the robe over her head but careful to keep her mask in place.

[Nothing to be modest about here, you look splendid…] he said as he looked her up and down, she was far slimmer than he had thought and with just her bra and underwear left, there was nothing for her to hide behind except the green rubber mask. She took his sword, noting that it was real, and leaned it against the nightstand. He took her hand that was both cold and sweaty at the same time and pulled her into the bed.

He had pulled her on top of him, but then he was on her somehow. She couldn't keep track of him much less keep up with him. He was ravenous, he was behaving as though they were lovers that had been kept apart far too long. He moved her body around as if intimately familiar with it. She had never seen this kind of intensity in a lover before and she was quickly swept away, like she was in slow motion. [Monsieur, please…]

As he was distracted, now pleasing her, she felt herself reeling. Her head was spinning and it felt like everything was zooming in and out. She wondered for a moment if she had been drugged and then realized that she had stopped breathing sometime ago. She took several deep gasps as she desperately tried to grab the headboard and pulled, trying to reach behind it, where she had a Syrette of morphine taped. [Monsieur, please… enough…please no more…]

He laughed, his breath hot against her skin, but it was a laugh that was all too familiar and suddenly she was struck with the horrifying realization that the man in black was Jason Bourne. No wonder he knew how to turn and flip and move her around, he only wrestled her for a month. She felt like a fool, of course they wouldn't have them practice drugging millionaires. She redoubled her efforts to pull away and felt for the Syrette, but he was faster.

Misunderstanding her statement, he held her legs as he sat backwards, pulling her back down the bed, towards him. [I couldn't agree more Mademoiselle, sorry to torture you so…]

[No, you misunderstand. Please…] but it was too late he was inside her. She looked up at his perfect blue eyes that she hated so much; they stood out against the black mask. There was haughtiness in his eyes that she knew all too well. He knew it was her, he had to. He must have realized the change in her eyes, seen the hatred and realized that she knew now too. He started pouring it on and she couldn't help but respond. She hated herself for liking it, but there was nothing that she could do to stop him. Not only did she move with him, but the series of commands and statements exuding from her mouth shocked even her.

When finally she felt herself nearing climax, she reached up and ripped that stupid mask of his head, he reached for it, to keep it on a second too late. She fumbled with hers; her face and hair were sweaty from being in the rubber mask. She grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him close and whispered in his ear so the bugs couldn't hear, "God, I hate you… Come on you jerk; do it…" He pounded on her with reckless abandon knowing that she would feel it the next day. She felt herself start to spasm and grabbed him by the back of the head with one hand and the cheek with the other. She threw her head back but rolled her eyes down to stare at him. "Now would be a great…" she started to whisper as he came.

"Ssshhh…" he hissed. Not that she kept tabs on him or anything, but he had been stuck on that island for a year with no girlfriend that she knew of and it showed. He threw her legs over his shoulders and pounded on her so hard that she thought that she was going to split in half, but she felt his release and she sighed even as he was still grinding on her. She couldn't remember which language to speak or even what her native language was so she bit her hand, behind the thumb hard.

[I am sorry mademoiselle, but I really must but going…] she felt something pinch her abdomen and suddenly all of her muscles went limp. [I'm sorry, were you looking for that?] he asked smugly as he tossed the Syrette into the waste basket. He went to her nightstand and opened the drawer. He reached underneath and pulled a piece of tape away and took the CD that had been hidden under the drawer. She he no idea what it was, apparently he had been given a mission as well. [I guess I could have just taken it and left, maybe I should have. You weren't quite as fiery as I expected, I mean really, what a disappointment…]

He came over and kissed her cheek mockingly and she whispered, [they'll kill me…] and he looked and saw real horror in her eyes, which pleaded for help at the same time before she passed out.


	8. Chapter 8: A Grave Situation

Chapter 8

Present

In the middle of the night Jason Bourne rode the Triumph to Westchester County and arrived at the Cemetery in the dead of night. He then slowly worked his way across the entire perimeter on foot, until he was satisfied that there were no overt hit or surveillance teams in place. He felt amped up and wondered if there was an asset in place, if there was they could be anywhere and he cursed Nicky for picking such an open place or maybe she did it for a reason. Either way he had to play the game. He debated for a moment riding the bike through the grounds, and while it would be faster and easier to get away, it would be noisy and he would be exposed when he got off the bike anyway. He knew that is when he would take the shot, when he parked the bike and lowered the kickstand.

So, he ran through the woods behind the Cemetery and hopped the fence. He tried to be as stealthy as possible approaching a fixed position. Anyone seeing Nicky on the news would be able to figure out her message if they knew what to look for. _"…what's the first thing I'm going to do? I already did it! I went to pay myself my respects…" _ That told him the location of the drop, her grave, and that she had already done the drop. _"Am I angry at my step mother? No. You cannot hate a snake, just for being a snake… okay well I guess you can…" _ He felt like this was her referring to her indifference to Landy; Nicky had no way of knowing that he had given Landy the Intel to turn over to Congress. _"Really, Syndee needs to earn her money; wow I better watch what I say or she'll be trying to get me into bed…" _ This was about Landy again, Nicky wondering if Landy was in over her head and wanted Nicky to appear before Congress, with or without Nicky's consent. It also had the word earn, as in urn; she had made the drop in an urn or vase, possibly Intel meant for Landy. _"I may not have been born yesterday, but I was dead yesterday so if you nice people will excuse me I need to go have some fun…" _He thought this was her saying she had worked for both the CIA and Bourne and wanted to be made righteous in the intelligence community again or left the hell alone. All of this was speculative, but part of him understood her somehow and he was will to bet he was on target with most of it, if not all.

Jason got to her site and it was a grave. She had a lavish grave site with a stone sun dial around the site in a circle and a brass astrolabe on a plinth near the foot of the grave. The inscription read, 'Constance Lindbergh followed the heavens in life and now dwells amongst the stars; may she shine there forever, guiding us through the darkness of our lives…' There was a brass vase that locked into place on the top of the headstone. He twisted it to unlock it from the headstone and dumped it out; there was a plastic bag with a piece of paper and a cell phone in it. He grabbed it and resisted the urge to flee and took the time to put the flowers back in the vase and replace it on the grave.

He ran through the grounds, trying to weave between crypts and trees until he returned to the bike. He found a business sized card stuck between his throttle and brake, it had a name, a number, and two sentences: 'Paz 555-3435. Why didn't you take the shot? Call if you need me. BTW you owe me a sub.' It was from the asset the Bourne had talked out of shooting him on the top on the training building. He flipped it over it was a Subway free sub card that was full of stamps, he had to laugh at that, at least it was worth a free lunch. He sped off on the bike and took ample precautions that he wasn't followed.

As soon as he was sure that he wasn't being tailed he stopped at a 24 hour coffee shop and entered despite his fear of the police. It was January in New York and riding a motorcycle in forty degree weather wasn't easy, he felt like he was frozen to the core. He hedged his bets the police inside would think a criminal would be crazy to go inside with three patrol cars out front.

He sat at the counter one seat between himself and the nearest police officer. He sat his helmet and gloves on the counter. Bourne knew he was half frozen, but if he sat far away it would draw suspicion. The closest office heard Jason's helmet hit the counter, "Man, you are hardcore…"

"Yeah, I'm doing a benefit ride in Manhattan tomorrow for a little girl with cancer. It's now or never; she doesn't have long."

One of the other cops spoke up, "Yeah, I heard about that. That's a tough break. Are you taking donations?"

"Yeah, that's what it's all about. Or, you can send it in to the telethon if you want," he passed down a flier that was in the jacket Red gave him.

The waitress came over, "What can I get you sweetie?"

Bourne laughed, "How much to hold the coffee pot? Black coffee please… lots of it."

Jason stayed longer than he liked but he had to warm up some. He made sure to leave before they got their checks and drove back to the city. He got back to his room and he stripped the blanket off the bed and wrapped himself in it while curled up on the bathroom floor, the hot water on full blast in the shower to heat up the room. He let himself shiver and waited for his core temperature to rise before climbing under the faucet. He knew better than to climb under the water first thing, it fooled the body into thinking it was warm enough so the core stopped producing heat.

He stayed in the shower so long that he wondered if the hotel could ever run out, but by the time he got out he had formulated a plan. He had to get Nicky and get away while in one of the most heavily populated places on earth, which had a police force which was still being lambasted in the press for his little escapade from last time. It might help them break off a pursuit sooner, but if cornered he doubted they would try to take him alive.

He inspected his body thoroughly from head to toe. The bruise from the fall that ran up the back of his left leg and under his left arm was still purplish black and sore to the touch. The bullet wound didn't show any signs of an infection, nor did the twenty or so lacerations over his body. His right hand and left forearm were bruised from grabbing the seat belt on the police car and wrapping it around himself. His right foot had been injured in the crash as well, he thought that he had broken his second metatarsal as it the center of the ball of his foot that hurt and it was difficult to put pressure on it.

He ate a huge breakfast, more so than usual. His body was finally able to keep down solid food and his appetite was reasserting itself with a vengeance. Besides that, he knew this might be his last meal for awhile and tried not to wonder if it would be his last meal ever. He was in no physical condition to fight or to run. If he was going to grab Nicky he had to do it right, one of the few advantages that he had was that Nicky didn't know he had started remembering things. If she was the safety valve, she would play along until there was an opportune time to put a bullet in the back of his head. He was never going to let that happen.


	9. Chapter 9: Doctor's Office Visit

Chapter 9

1999

Not knowing what to do, Jason Bourne took off Nicky's boots and gloves that she had left on and covered her with a sheet, suddenly feeling horrible. He debated sleeping there, but he was sure that would just anger her more than if he left. Surely she was paranoid to think that they would kill her for this. He went back to his room and, as he fell asleep, he realized he could smell her shampoo and perfume still and made a mental note to wash the sheets tomorrow.

After his morning run Jason was enjoying his coffee and bagel on the upper floor of the library, as he did every morning, while reading the Art of War which he had read many times but always enjoyed. Suddenly someone grabbed the back of his chair and tipped him backwards until he crashed to the floor loudly and suddenly he was being straddled with his arms pinned to the floor with a knife to his throat. He promised himself two things that day: he would never sit without his back to a wall again and he would vary his daily routine.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Reina screamed.

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Bourne asked acerbically.

_"They took her! They came in the middle of the night and they took her!"_Reina hissed.

He blinked rapidly several times, "Who took her?" he asked, finally realizing what she was taking about.

"Hirsch and Margret… I was trying to wake her up and they came and took her, she whispered your name. What the hell happened?"

"I did what I was ordered to do; I was supposed to get files from her by any means necessary. We had sex without her knowing it was me, until the end because I laughed and she pulled my mask off. Then she tried to get to the syringe the she had taped behind the headboard, but I found it earlier and doped her instead. I told her she inapt and was a complete let down and I left."

"Inapt? You fool…Don't you see that is how we are supposed to get close to our targets?" she looked completely stunned as she climbed off of him.

"She said they would kill her, you don't think…" he felt a huge swell of guilt. He liked butting heads with her, but didn't want to see her dead.

"No, of course not… Hirsch wouldn't have come for that. I saw them take her away in a car though, so they either took her away permanently or they are punishing her in some way that they can't do here. You're such an asshole Bourne," she got up and stormed off without another word.

That night when he went to bed he could still smell her on his sheets and felt such overwhelming feelings of regret and remorse that the unthinkable happened. He couldn't sleep. He always slept like a rock; he was always asleep within a minute of putting his head down but not that night. He flipped his pillow and punched it, trying to fluff it and it released a fresh waft of her scent, he had not showered before going to bed the night before and had carried her scent with him. There was jasmine and vanilla. There was something else there as well, something uniquely hers. There were faint smells from her body and her sweat, but he was sure it was her pheromones that were bothering him.

He thought about the first time he met her, shortly after she arrived, completely beat to hell and remembered wondering how the hell someone as thin as her was supposed to kill someone. He was so dense sometimes; he never thought that the women were supposed to be long term 'undercover assassins', literally, whereas the men were more of the modern 'shoot in and out' assassins. She had willingly and wantonly slept with a complete stranger, obviously she had been doing it awhile and he wondered how frequently with bitterness. He had lied when he had said she was inapt, she was really quiet talented. He suddenly realized that he was feeling a bitterness he had never felt before, jealousy. He couldn't ever remember feeling jealous, he was the guy that always got the girl and broke their heart before he got attached.

He sat upright with the startling realization that he had gotten attached to her; he had let himself fall in love with that girl. He was stunned, she wasn't right for him. She was a cerebral, nonathletic, stubborn, socialite. He remembered the look on her face as she said, "God, I hate you… Come on you jerk; do it…" as she came to orgasm. She hadn't really been saying she _hated_ him… Jesus, what had he done he wondered, and when sleep finally came it was full of dreams of her in pain, being tortured as he could do nothing.

The next few weeks changed Bourne, the fear of his bravado and showboating possibly being to blame for Nicky's death or exile humbled him. He had been a bully to her and everyone else his whole life. The days wore on and as if the guilt wasn't a constant enough of a reminder, everywhere he went Reina seemed to be there glaring at him. He seriously thought that she was contemplating ways to kill him, which given their professions wouldn't seem farfetched. He hadn't realized how much he enjoyed the friction that Nicky produced until she was gone.

Finally after two weeks he was sick of Reina's evil eyes and he stormed over to her after archery practice, which was a voluntary weapon class. They were the only two out there at the time. She lowers the crossbow she had been practicing with, "Look Reina, I'm going to break into Hirsch's office tonight and find out where she is. You want to help, or not? I am not as good as you are with computers…"

"At last you have some sort of plan… So, we find out where she is, then what?"

"That depends on where she is. We need answers first…"

So later that night well past three, they snuck into the office of Dr. Albert Hirsch and Reina slid deftly behind the office chair and started hammering on the keyboard, which sounded insanely loud in the huge office.

"I got past his password, give me a few minutes. Maybe you should at least pretend to watch the door Bourne…"

They both jumped as a gravelly voice said from the darkness, "Don't bother, no one else is ever up this late…" Dr. Hirsch clicked on a desk lamp, which made him wince having obviously been sitting in the dark a long time. "I apologize for the rudeness I didn't mean to eavesdrop, I get terrible migraines and the darkness always helps, among other things…" he said as he took a sip from a Highball glass.

They both had their mouths agape, he recovered first, "Where is she, what have you done with her?"

"Normally I would play coy, but the hour is late. Ms. Parsons is being reeducated… at another location." The way he said 'another location' sent chills down Bourne's spine.

"Get her back here, now!" Reina demanded.

"Ms. Tanaka, please don't presume to order me around. I built this program and the one before it, and the one before that. "She was to remain there until someone spoke up on her behalf." He was sitting on it a huge leather arm chair tucked into a corner on the room. He picked up a phone from the end table next to him and hit a single button, "Yes, have Nicolette Parsons cleaned up and back here on the first ferry over. Thanks…"

He hung up the phone, "I am beginning to think it was a mistake to bring her here, she is by far our youngest trainee, ever. Although she is very intelligent for her age and very skilled in medicine, linguistics, and an accomplished pilot; all of which made her an attractive candidate, there are things one can only experience through time."

He drained his glass and looked at it before sitting it down, obliviously wanting more. Without thinking Reina rose and started making another, "…vodka tonic?" she said more as a statement than a question.

{Yes, please. Feel free to pour one for yourself as well, rum and coke yes? Mr. Bourne prefers Long Islands…} he said in almost perfect Japanese, with an Okinawa accent.

{I was not aware you spoke Japanese Doctor…}

{Yes, I was an agent there for many years. I was acquainted with your father, he was one of the reasons I recruited you; I was saddened by his loss,} she stiffened at this. Bourne was looking back and forth; Long Island and Okinawa were the only things he understood.

She brought him his drink and handed it to him holding it in both hands, and he took it with both hands and nodded slightly, he glanced at her fingers for a second which was not missed by her, "no, I am not wearing a poison _ring_…" she said inferring that that she did indeed have other poison about her person. She handed Bourne his drink with two hands, "take it with both hands please, it is a sign of respect…" she nodded and he nodded back.

"Hirsch…" Reina said in a low voice as if remembering something, "Hearse… He mispronounced your name as Hearse?" the Doctor nodded. "He said you were the bringer of the dead…"

"Yes, I was very good once. I was an asset during the height of the cold war, as was Margret. It was different then, both sides with their fingers on the buttons, ready willing and able to end life on an unprecedented scope. You will be asked to do things, horrible things… They will often seem wrong and on a small scale they would be, but not on a global scale. Always remember that…" he drained his glass.

"Like what exactly?" Bourne inquired, more than a little apprehensive.

Hirsch seemed to mull this over; Reina's first thought was to make him another drink but then she remembered he was a psychiatrist and would see through this in an instant as an attempted to get him drunker. She pulled heavily from her glass and eyed Bourne's in a subtle way and he got the point and started drinking his which had been untouched.

"I am too old to care about what they would do to me if this ever got out. In the early sixties a group of American pilots were captured and imprisoned in the USSR. I was sent to ensure that the pilots never broke under duress. I was given leeway of the methods that I employed, as you will be. I was to be sent alone and after I reviewed the intelligence of the facility where they were imprisoned, I could come to only one solution given the allotted time. I requested a measure of plutonium, not an easy thing to requisition to be sure. I was parachuted in under what was to be one of the first halo jumps and I used the plutonium to poison the facilities well water which was easily accessible." Bourne and Reina exchanged wary looks. "I know, after forty years to reflect I have come up with other plans. But, poisoning the well was the easiest safest way to achieve my objective."

Bourne interjected, "so, you killed US troops!"

Hirsch nodded, "Yes, and civilians and normal Soviet military personal. But the number of lives I saved on both sides far outweighed the casualties. If even one of those pilots had broken and revealed the true nature of their mission World War III would have begun, of this I assure you. You will have hard choices to make. I still must make them every day. Now please, to bed with you both." They drained their glasses and left as Hirsch flipped his light back off. He would never tell them, but Parsons had been sent away not for her own failings, but for Bourne's. His arrogance and brashness would have to be dulled and his guilt might be enough to do it.


	10. Chapter 10: Photo Finish

Chapter 10

Photo Finish

Present day

Jason Bourne dialed the number Nicky had typed on the piece of paper and Nicky picked up before the phone even rang on his end, "Code in," came her familiar but wary voice.

"…it was very difficult for me… with you…" he said, repeating words she had used to describe their prior involvement, the words that still echoed in his head.

"…it gets easier…" she repeated his last words to her, her voice full of joy and elation, which would be short lived. He could tell she was now holding the phone in two hands, as though that might bring him closer. He could imagine the light dancing behind her eyes and the slight smile on her lips, the most she ever allowed. He quickly turned those thoughts off as easily as he would a faucet; he allowed the cold and robotic side to take over.

"South East Corner of Park and 97th at 1:30 pm, stay there until you're told. Dress warm; wear a short coat and gloves, bring the phone."

"I'll be there," was all she could manage before he disconnected, although he did note the deflation of her spirit.

Nicky arrived at the corner at 1:29 intentionally. She always thought losing a CIA tail was difficult but the paparazzi reporters were something else entirely. Where did they find scooters in Manhattan anyway? She had planned on being on the news, that was the point, but she hadn't planned on pushing LiLo and the Kardashian's off the tabloid pages. Just in the National Enquirer alone she had been returned by alien abductors, discovered Atlantis, and traveled through time by flying through the Bermuda Triangle, which was apparently in the north Atlantic now since that's where her plane went down.

She had already shed two layers and ducked in to a department store to buy another coat, a black beret, and white scarf. She stood at the corner for ten minutes before her nerves got the better of her; she turned to leave and took two steps when the phone rang. It was in her hand the whole time, she popped it open to be greeted by Bourne's terse voice, "'Stay there until you're told' doesn't mean stand there ten minutes and leave. Where were you going?"

His tone on the last sentence scared her to the core of her being, he sounded like he had in Berlin when she thought he was going to blow her head off. "I-I thought we were burned, the paparazzi are all over me…"

"No, you lost them at Macy's, along with the two agents posing as paparazzi…Wait there… here it comes… don't hang up."

She hadn't noticed the traffic die off, but it did then she saw the police cars go by with their lights on, but no sirens. They were blocking the traffic at the cross streets, she wondered why for a moment until she heard a deep rumbling. Looking down the street she saw hundreds of motorcycles coming down the street. Dozens rolled by, with police Harleys in the lead and people on the sidewalks had all stopped and an ad hoc crowd was growing. One of the bikes had pulled over about fifteen feet from her; its owner was toying with the shifter or something on the other side of the bike and looking down at the engine as if something was wrong with it. It clearly wasn't Bourne; he was too tall and too thin, not to mention way too old, so she kept looking for Bourne.

"That bike, go and get on it…" he instructed. She locked her jaw and squared her shoulders; she strode forward and reached for her gun. Bourne didn't see her gun in the crowd, but knew her purposeful stride, "No! Don't hurt the guy; get on the BACK of the bike…"

She saw the rider whip his head in her direction, "Oh," she felt like an idiot, she should have known that he didn't want her to gun down a biker in front of hundreds of bikers, dozens of police officers, and scores of pedestrians. It was his voice though, she was in fear of her life and didn't know why, but she would have been willing to gun the man down rather than further enraging Bourne.

She put the gun back under her coat as well as the phone, but left it open and on. As she got to the bike the rider pointed to the back of the bike, she jumped on and he handed her a helmet over his shoulder; he had been unhooking it from the other side of the bike... She put it on as he sped off, but she couldn't see out the visor, she tried to lift it but it was glued down. She realized the chemical odor that she smelled was from the helmet, not the bike. It was from spray paint and super glue.

She was perplexed at not being able to see where she was going, or rather the rationale behind it. She felt them take off into the crowd of other bikes and wasn't sure what was going on, but she could tell that they were passing other bikes at a fairly fast rate.

"Just hang on miss. Please keep calm…" the gruff biker said in a less than reassuring tone looking over his shoulder. His voice sounded clearer than it should.

"Great," she responded, knowing he couldn't hear her.

"Please keep quiet Sparrow, this is a party line," said Bourne into her ear, then she realized the helmet was wired with a blue tooth or something. "Osprey, how are we looking?"

A third voice with an eastern bloc accent spoke, "We have two thorns on one scooter, a hundred yards behind Sparrow; please advise, over." She felt that she recognized the voice as a Blackbriar asset named Paz.

"Spare them if you can, but slow or distract them when I say… Sparrow, hold on." several seconds went by."Now," instructed Jason in a cool even tone. The bike swung hard left and accelerated as she heard a crash behind them, the bike banked right and abruptly stopped and listed to the right as the rider lowered the kickstand and jumped off. She started to lift off the seat to get off when a firm hand pressed down on her shoulder.

The eastern voice spoke again, "they are both down but alive. Their vehicle is ruined and they are commandeering a motorcycle that went down, orders…?"

"Not worth risking your exposure… reel it in Osprey. Good work," Jason responded. Someone else got on her bike and they sped off at a high rate of speed, she knew to hold on for her life because she knew Jason was now on the bike with her and he was worse at wrecking bikes than cars and she could tell they were zipping down an alley dodging obstacles.

She wrapped her arms around him and relished in the way their bodies fit together, she wished she could take the helmet off so she feel and smell the leather of his jacket. He was alive and in her arms, she felt like she could fly. She couldn't easily think of a happier moment in her life and she wanted it to last forever, sadly it lasted about as long as she expected.

"They are on us…"

"How," she implored.

He didn't respond vocally, but she felt him tense up. It was a rhetorical question and they both knew it. They were being tracked, or more correctly _she_ was being tracked. Her mind raced, how were they tracking her? All of her clothing was purchased that day, even her bra. She had a book on her, but she just bought it today too. Her guns, ID, and watch came out of storage. The watch hadn't been off her wrist. Her guns had been out of her sight, one of them anyway. She had broken them down twice including this morning. Then it hit her, "the bullets…" she muttered forgetting they could hear her.

"What bullets?" snapped Jason.

"The ones in my gun, that's the only thing that makes sense. They must have loaded a fake bullet with a tracker at some point…"

"Lose the clip," he instructed.

"How about I shoot at them?"

"No, dump them."

"Look mom no hands…" she said as a nervous warning as she let go of him and leaned back. She got the gun out of her pocket and released magazine and tossed it, then emptied the chamber and replaced the gun. She reached in her purse for the other gun, but there was no point, it had been in her hand almost every second.

Just then she felt a heavy rain start to fall and for once she was happy to be wearing the helmet so that at least her head would be warm, the rest of her was already freezing.

"Hold on," he said abruptly.

"Are we cutting through the park?"

"You can see?"

She sighed, "I forgot you don't remember, I am a world class navigator and I'm from the Big Apple. You only made two turns Jason. There is this thing called Central Park that's 6.1 miles long… Would you like me to be your tour guide? Over on the left…"

The eastern voice spoke up, "please be silent, they should have named you Mocking Bird." Paz and the gruff biker laughed, she was less than amused. "Phoenix, I have made my egress uneventfully. I am headed to location B now."

The gruff voice responded, "I am headed to the nest. See you both soon. I'll have some cold ones waiting…"

"Roger that."

She felt the bike slow and then she could tell they were on grass. It felt like they were making looping patterns and most assuredly not taking the most direct route. She heard Jason laugh, but didn't ask him to elaborate. It felt like they were on a side walk now and a few minutes of what she would call uneventful travel ensued, they had apparently lost them.

She felt the bike come to a stop, "get off, but leave the helmet on." She obeyed and stood there in the pouring rain and she heard a metal door screech open and the sound of him moving something heavy, the motorcycle… he must be hiding it. He returned and grabbed her by her upper arm and half carried and half drug her into the building and led her through the building and he opened a door and shoved her into a smaller room. She stood there with her shoulders uncharacteristically slouched, even though he didn't remember much he knew she looked utterly defeated. He had crushed her spirit and he had even done anything yet. She knew bad things were about to happen he thought, just as he saw her try to swallow hard.

He walked up behind her and pulled her purse from over her head and dropped it to the floor, he then unceremoniously pulled her coat and scarf off. He grabbed a hand from behind her and she moved the other hand behind her too, knowing he was going to bind her. This made him feel very ashamed and her unquestioning complacency stunned him. "Feet too?" she asked.

"Sit," he instructed as he lowered her to a chair and then bound her feet too. Only then did he remove her helmet, although he at least did it gently. Her hair was very short almost boyish and brown.

"Jesus Jason, you should sleep more… you look tired," she said only half kidding. His face was pale and had a greenish tint and it looked like he had black eyes he was so sleep deprived.

"Okay, we are going to try this again," he said as he was riffling through her pockets, he removed the gun and silencer. "What the hell do you need a silencer for?" he asked with a suspicious but irritated tone.

She stammered, "I-It was in my dead drop here in New York, so I took it too. I-It was before I found you; I wasn't sure what I was getting into." She watched as he sifted through her coat and purse.

He took out her other gun from her purse and saw it was still loaded, he held it up with a questioning look. She stuttered, "It-it has been in my hand or on me at all times. The other I left in the hotel safe several times."

He screwed the silencer onto her gun and she tried to look away and control her breathing. She swallowed hard as he pulled something from his pocket; it was the same photo he had shown her in the coffee shop of Hirsch and Daniels only obviously in far worse shape. He rested his gun arm on his leg and the barrel was casually but obviously aimed at her kneecap. "Let's try this one more time and I swear if you tell me a single lie I will blow your kneecap off. Who is this?"

"I don't know…" she began…


	11. Chapter 11: Through the Eyes of a Child

Chapter 11

Through the Eyes of a Child

1999

Bourne couldn't sleep that night at all and although he didn't know it, Reina couldn't either, but for very different reasons. When he got up he grabbed his bagel and coffee and went to eat it on the front steps, he had called to see when the first fairy arrived back and they should be here in a few minutes. Reina and Hirsch were already on the steps waiting for her to get there; Hirsch being there really troubled him. Jason knew he was there as her Doctor and not as a friend.

Reina looked at his coffee and bagel and rolled her eyes, "I swear you are so predictable Bourne and just like a man, always thinking about your stomach." Hirsch frowned; Bourne wasn't the only one he had been looking for a reaction from by sending Nicky Parsons away. Ms. Tanaka was too stubborn and self centered, always refusing friendship and assistance.

Bourne glared at Reina. "Okay, I'm jealous. Can have a bite, I'm starving. I get cranky when I'm hungry…"

"Wow, you're hungry a lot…" he ripped it in half and gave her some. Hirsch turned his head away from them and smiled. He still hadn't lost his touch.

Hirsch turned and addressed them, "While your sentiment is touching, her return will be… awkward for her. Please wait inside I will be evaluating her throughout the day, please leave her be until after dinner. You may take dinner up to her room then; she will want to stay in her room for awhile. Please keep you visit brief and allow her time to rest when needed. The adjustment is… difficult sometimes… Here is her car now."

Bourne turned to leave, "Sir," Reina began, "If you knew and worked with my father why did you not tell him where I went? Why let him think I killed myself?"

He turned very slowly, "Ms. Tanaka- Reina… I went and saw him myself. I _did_ tell him where you went and of your decision to join the program. That _is_ the reason he killed himself…" he said sadly. "I misjudged him; I thought he would be better off knowing. I am truly sorry. Now off with you…"

She stumbled backward and would have fallen had Bourne not caught her by the arm. He helped her inside and to a sitting room. "Here drink this," he gave her his coffee. "You look like you're going to faint."

Bourne went to the window and saw Nicky coming up the steps; she was in a complete daze, almost catatonic. She was wearing the black monk's robe she had worn to the Halloween party. "Jesus Christ… Reina look at this, Reina!" Her head snapped up and she walked over and instantly her own issues were forgotten.

"Jason… it's like…"

"They ripped out her soul?"

"I was going with 'lobotomized her' but yeah, yours is better…"

They saw her turn towards Hirsch and speak to him, but they could tell her eyes never looked at him or focused. Reina turned to go to the front door and Bourne grabbed her arm, "He said to wait…"

"To hell with him," she pivoted out of his grip and in a flash they were in a mixed Judo slash wrestling match where Bourne soon pinned her to the ground, but she was still fighting. "He's been doing this for decades Reina. We are going to do exactly what he said, okay."

She licked her lips, "Oh, wow. I think you need to get off of me now…"

"Do you promise…" he began still holding her down by the wrists.

"Yeah, yeah, fine. Unless you want to spend the morning in a cupboard, please let me go," she panted.

"Oh," he said feeling the sexual energy.

"Yeah…"

He quickly got up and helped her up, "Sorry… I never knew you felt that way."

"I don't you idiot. Half of it is a lack of options."

"…and the other half?"

"You've been field tested; I share a thin wall with Parsons. Sexually competent males are in short supply around here, trust me, I've looked. I would pull you in that closet if I didn't know that she likes you."

"She told you…"

"No, you're both hot for one another. That's what the bickering is about. Its foreplay," she explained as she straightened her clothes, "like two rams butting heads…"

"The rams are both males…"

"Yeah, whatever farm boy… You get the point."

They spent the day staring at the clock and pacing the halls trying to catch a glimpse of Nicky. They knew she wasn't in her room or Hirsch's office and came to the inevitable conclusion that they must be in one of the sublevels.

True to his word Nicky was a no show at dinner and so they made her a plate and they took it up to her room. Reina knocked on her door, "Hey Parsons, its Reina and Jason. We brought you Dinner."

They heard a very faint, "come in."

"Damn!"

"Jesus Nicky!" Nicky was sitting on the edge of the bed stark naked with the same blank look on her face. The Halloween costume was in a pile on the floor. Reina shoved the tray of food in his hands, "Get out, and give us a minute."

"But, I've…"

"…seen the goods, yeah I get it. _Now get out_!" he hadn't actually stepped into the room yet and she slammed the door shut one inch from his face. He could hear her through the door though. "Nicky, what the hell… Put some clothes on." Jason couldn't help but notice Reina's American accent was gone, she sound Austrailianish… Maybe she was from New Zealand? He had never heard it before, she covered it well…

"Would you like that?" she asked politely.

"Yes, please with sugar on top, put some fucking clothes on. Why are you naked?"

"Dr. Hirsch said that I would have the night off, so he said to get more comfortable and relax. He said to be expecting you. What would you like me to put on?"

"Anything… no not the costume Parsons, Halloween is over sweetie. Normal clothing, put pajamas on, you apparently need to sleep something off. Is it okay if Jason comes in, he brought you dinner… to apologize?"

"That's so sweet of him, he is the nicest person."

"Okay, now I know you need to sleep something off… Come in Jason."

"Hi, Nicky… You had us worried?" he said tentatively walking into the room.

She smiled and cocked her head like a school girl with a crush, but her eyes still cold and lifeless. "Jason…" she stood up and hugged him when he came over and something about the way she lightly hugged him wrenched something inside of him. He had seen her after her interview and she had fire and tenacity. He had trouble imagining what kind of horrors would cause this to someone who came out of the 'interview' so well. "…I've missed you. I thought Roy would come, but he really doesn't like me the way you do." He rubbed her head with a questioning look and Reina mouthed 'the Professor' and he nodded.

Reina instructed, "Here eat some dinner Nicky you must be hungry."

"Would you like that?" she asked Jason.

He cocked an eyebrow at that, "Yes, but first can you stand on one leg for me?" She did so and Reina looked at him and caught on.

She instructed, "I'd like it if you stick out your tongue," and Nicky did, still standing on one foot. "I love for you to slap Jason as hard as you can," she did and Jason let her.

"I like to see you cut yourself." She looked around for something sharp and she grabbed a large candle from the end table and made to throw it at her dresser mirror. He caught her hand, "what are you doing?"

"Breaking the glass to cut myself, it would make you happy?" she blinked innocently. "I no longer want you to cut yourself. I never want you to harm yourself in anyway, or kill yourself. It would greatly displease me, do you understand?"

"Yes, Jason. If I hurt or kill myself it would greatly displease you."

"Here, eat your dinner while I talk to Reina."

Bourne and Reina exchanged troubled looks, he motioned her to the hallway where he whispered, "not only will she do anything, but apparently she is still capable for problem solving in order to do it."

"Jesus, Jason… what could they have done?"

"Let's ask her," he shrugged, "see if we can get her talking?" They went back in and shut the door. "Nicky we would love for you to tell us what happened to you,"

"I called my mother. Then I went to see her. She was very ill. She needed an operation…"

Reina tried her turn, "we would love to know who told you to say you were visiting your mum."

"My mother did have surgery," she said matter of factly.

They went on like that for some time and really only found out that Hirsch had thought of everything, then Jason thought of something else. "Nicky where did you say you were right now?"

"I am in upstate New York."

"Where is Jason Bourne right now?"

"Jason Bourne is on Jersey Island, in the English Channel near the coast of France."

He turned to Reina, "Hirsch didn't know we figured out that we were here." He continued, "I would love to know who is with Jason on Jersey Island." Reina smiled knowing what he was doing, he was creating a paradox.

"He is with Reina Tanaka and Nicolette Parson's."

"...and you are Nicolette Parsons?"

"Yes."

"Standing next to Jason Bourne?"

"Yes."

"…on Jersey Island?"

"Yes."

"Where are you right now?"

She struggled with the answer for many long minutes, unable to process how she was in two places at once. "I asked you a question Nicolette."

"I don't know the answer."

"Where would the stars tell you that you were?"

"…on Jersey Island?"

"Do the stars ever lie?"

"No, they never lie."

"Do people lie?"

"Yes."

"Where are you right now?"

"I am on Jersey Island," she happily concluded.

"According to the stars, where were you last week… your best guess?"

"North Africa?" she said uncertainly.

"Nicky were you in a city in North Africa?" Reina interjected.

"Yes."

"What did it look like?"

"Lots of rooms… An open courtyard in the middle, many floors…"

"Lots of rooms…? Like an old hotel, all the rooms faced the middle?"

She nodded sleepily.

Reina interjected, "What did the city look like? What type of architecture… the building materials?"

She struggled with this for a long time.

"She's not an architect," he muttered absently. Bourne asked, "What was the airport like, the runways? Did you have a window seat?"

"Yes," she started describing the runways using a lot of terms he couldn't follow.

"Here can you draw it from the air?" She started drawing crude out lines of the airfield; she looked rather childlike as if she were coloring. "Was there anything about it different about this airport?"

"It had old hangers."

"How old, what do you mean, what type of hangers?"

"German ones I think, Nazis…?"

"Was there anything else odd about it?"

"It had classic twelve foot scaffolding."

He looked at Reina who shrugged, she asked "Nicky what is twelve foot scaffolding used for… at an airfield?" she added quickly.

Nicky sounded like a tour guide when she said, "During the Second World War the B-17 bomber saw extensive action in all theaters of war. All manner of repairs were designed to be handled in the field by ground crews, including the repair or replacement of the planes four 1200 hp Wright Cyclone GR-1820-65 radial engines, to perform this remarkable feat a specially designed set of twelve foot high scaffolding was used."

Reina was shocked, "Wow, that was freaky!" to which Nicky turned to her looking hurt, almost pouting. "No, you exceeded my every expectation! You made me very happy." Nicky smiled like she was twelve and hugged her.

"I'm glad you're my friends!" Nicky suddenly exclaimed.

Still in information gathering mode Bourne asked distractedly, "Who else is your friend?" he was hoping to gain more information on what they did to her, or more specifically who.

"You're my only friends… I've never had a friend before… not ever," she said sadly. Reina thought to herself that if Nicky had told her or Bourne that, the day before she disappeared, they would have told her she was fucking pathetic.

Reina asked, "But we are both horrible to you, why do you put up with us?"

Nicky pulled away and looked her with the innocence of a child, "because you're my only friends and friends are always there for each other!"

"Oh, God…" Reina said almost sounding like she was going to throw up, "I love you too Nicky… I think I left the stove on…" and Reina tore from the room and slammed the door by accident.

"Pork chop sandwiches!" she called after her giggling. She looked at Jason seriously, "there could be a fire… Jason? Can I go to sleep now?"

"Yes, that would make me happy Nicky."

She said sadly, "sometimes people come when I'm sleeping and take me bad places. Sometimes they hurt me."

Jason suddenly sound sick too, he choked out "I will stay with you, they won't come if I'm here…" he tucked her under the covers.

"Jason? I love you…" she said already half asleep.

He kissed her forehead, "I love you too Nicky." He would never tell anyone that ever again, but sadly she was already asleep and never heard it.


	12. Chapter 12: Silent all these Years

Chapter 12

Silent all these years…

Present day

He screwed the silencer onto her gun and she tried to look away and control her breathing. She swallowed hard as he pulled something from his pocket; it was the same photo he had shown her in the coffee shop of Hirsch and Daniels only obviously in far worse shape. He rested his gun arm on his leg and the barrel was casually but obviously aimed at her kneecap. "Let's try this one more time and I swear if you tell me a single lie I will blow your kneecap off. Who is this?"

"I don't know…" she began and saw his face turn red and he set his jaw, "… his real name. No one does, the name he uses is Dr. Albert Hirsch."

"Okay, now who _is_ he?"

"A lot of this is speculation, but we thought he was one of the original assets form the first progenitor program Project Silverfish, it all goes back to the Fifties at least. Maybe it goes back longer, who knows? But, in our day he was chief medical officer for the black bag programs. He picked us out for recruitment, he broke us down, did surgeries on us, determined our dosages… he created us. He was in charge of our mental and physical well being… of all of the assets," she was talking very rapidly, which was always a good sign of honesty.

"So, wait… you trained _with_ us?"

"Y-yes, I was originally being trained as asset until I was pulled and reassigned."

"Why?" he asked distractedly.

"Why was I being trained as an asset? I was a medical doctor, pilot, and I had a talent for linguistics. Something I had a theory on was that we were all descended from heroes of some kind, but that was just an idea I had."

"No, why were you reassigned?"

"Oh, it was because a bunch of assholes decided to crash planes into buildings. Anyone in intelligence that knew Arabic or Hindi was immediately reassigned as of Sept 11, 2001. I went through two years of hell being trained only to be locked up in a basement translating phone calls and emails. Desh Bouksani and several others were pulled as well…"

"Desh? The guy I killed with the towel? You knew him?"

"Yes, I knew all of them. That was Paz helping us earlier?" he didn't answer her which she took as a yes. "I didn't hear a shot; did he take out the tire or something with a silencer?"

"Yes, from a roof top."

"You laughed when we lost the tail?"

"I spent days walking the park finding the right path to take, they tried to go in a straight line…"

It took her a few seconds, "They went through a low part and hit mud?"

He didn't smile or laugh, "Yes, they went face first over the handlebars."

He looked at her photo ID on her CIA badge a long time. She murmured, "We were so young when all this started…so naïve…" she almost sounding apologetic. She knew he was watching her for reactions as he sifted through everything. He even tested the quarters in her purse to see if they we real or fake. The CIA had used fake coins to hide poisoned needles for years in case an operative was captured they could use it to kill themselves. He checked her shoes, inside and out but he was relatively sure they were fine; he knew she didn't have them when she went into Macy's.

He held up the leather bound book, with a questioning look. "It's clean; I bought it today when I ducked into the book store."

"It was a random purchase?" he asked as he started to move to the next item.

"No. I bought it as a gift… for you," she said softly as if ashamed, spurned.

He picked it up again it was a soft covered black leather covered book with gold leafed pages and a ribbon bookmark and looked a lot like a bible, but it was too thin. He looked at the binder, _The Art of War -Sun Tzu. _Quotes from the book started flooding his head and he had a quick flash of memory of an angry Japanese woman squatting on his chest screaming at him, 'THEY TOOK HER! _They came in the middle of the night and took her! What did you do_?' and a horrible feeling washed over him. He swallowed hard and moved on.

He roughly removed her watch, "Please be careful with that." He eyed her suspiciously then examined the front then flipped it over and saw the name on the back; he immediately went ridged and became even paler. She knew he was having flashbacks and let them play out.

She saw him blink twice rapidly, "Are you back now Jason?"

He looked at her in bewilderment for a moment not knowing who she was, or where he was, or when for that matter. "It's Nicky Parsons, Jason are you okay? We are in New York in a water pumping station?" she said as she looked around. "Is the flashback over?"

"Sorry, you did a good job on your hair and make-up; I didn't recognize you for a second. It's cute… very Emma Watson. How long was I gone?" he asked sheepishly.

She smiled; something he knew was rare, "If I had my watch I could tell you… about three minutes I think," she said in a playful but snarky voice.

He popped the back of the watch open as if expecting something besides gears, satisfied he put it back. She knew he was stalling, trying to assimilate what he saw. "We were stargazing and you left me to go sleep with some guy, an asset I think?"

"Kind of… We weren't star gazing for pleasure, I was extrapolating the location of the secret base we were being trained at. You were helping me. That was close to the beginning of the training."

"I was jealous, but was confused as to why," he said blankly.

She looked shocked and leaned all the way back in the chair, "Well you're a great actor; you were a complete jerk to me for over a year. You used to be a complete asshole, but you dialed it back a lot, later in life. Those first few years we despised each other… like vehement unadulterated loathing…"

"Who was the guy," he tried to sound coy but obviously still jealous.

"He was the asset that tried to take you at the farm house where you blew up the propane tank…"

"Yeah… I know," he said sadly."What was his name?"

"Prof. Roy Hinkley… everyone just called him Professor though…"

"You were close to him?"

She pursed her lips and her eyes narrowed, "Yeah, we were close. I didn't love him, but we were… special friends?" It was the nicest term for fuck buddy he had ever heard, but he got the point.

"I felt horrible when I shot him but really couldn't understand why. He seemed like a great guy, he wasn't mad or anything that I shot him. It seemed like he didn't know me well."

Her mouth gapped, "you spoke to him?" She cleared her throat and asked tentatively, "what did he say?"

He was surprised by her ignorance; he was usually the one in the dark."We talked about our headaches and he said that I had really made a mess of it. He said 'look at what they make you give…' and wanted to be alone at the end." He added the last part as a white lie.

When he quoted him he saw her eyes water, but no tears actually came, "Jason, can you please just give me a minute…" He weighed the situation and nodded and walked to the other side of the room and for the first time she noticed the hurt leg and the way his left side was stiff and he didn't flex his back as he walked. Apparently Jason Bourne was a human being.

She recovered more quickly than he thought she would, it took her less than a minute before she cleared her throat and nodded to him.

He said sorrowfully, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Her mouth hung open, "Wh-what?"

"I'm sorry I killed your friend."

"You've never apologized to me before, for anything… but no you didn't really know each other. We were all kept in separate cells; you and I were in the same one though. But, in fairness, don't feel too sorry. I did send him to kill you after all…"

Now it was his turn to be shocked, "what?"

"I figured you assumed that already. I ran logistics for the ops; all of Conklin's orders came through me. I set up the missions, contacted the assets, and routed the weapons and gear, all of it. I knew that one of the two men that…" she broke off that line of thought. "I knew one of you; maybe both of you would die. I figured he would, he did as well… He knew you were better. They all did."

He felt like an idiot for not realizing she had been sending the people after him… and Marie. He thought of India, but he would hold off on that question. "You looked really young, how old where you?"

"I was nineteen, almost twenty then."

"How did you manage to get into all of this so young?"

She sighed, sick of explaining her life's story and prattled off her history, "I graduated high school at twelve, college at fourteen, medical school at seventeen."

"Kind of slow getting through medical school," he said sarcastically.

She snapped, "My father made me take a year off after college to 'better myself'. I learned to fly before I could drive, I became a master violinist, and I travelled the world where I learned that I also had a propensity for learning new languages."

"Wow, what can't you do?" he said sarcastically.

"Draw… which your are great at, bench press my weight, or sew. Oh, and I can't cook... not even toast. I subsist on room service and pop tarts alone…"

"You can't cook at all?" he asked incredulously.

Her eyes narrowed as though he had said something vulgar, "The last time I was in a kitchen it was to see why my Eggs Benedict and hollandaise sauce wasn't on the table; I found the cook dead on the kitchen floor."

"That's horrible," he said dripping with sarcasm.

"I know, right? Do you have any idea how hard it is to find someone that can make really good Eggs Benedict?"

He frowned at her, "You were a Doctor?" She nodded. "But you had no ethical qualms about running their experiments?"

This time it was her turn to go pale, "What…? What are you talking about?"

"That's not how this works… Start talking…"

"Hirsch was grooming me at first to be his eyes in the field on the agents," she saw his face tighten and knew she had said something incredibly wrong. "I was to monitor the mental and physical health and report to him weekly on the progress of the agents to make sure none of them went haywire. I think he was really grooming me to take over his job one day, but he never actually said that."

"But, you did torture people…" She locked her jaw to keep from saying something she'd regret. "Answer the question…"

"You did horrible things too Jason Bourne, just because you can't remember doesn't mean you didn't do them. How dare _you_ sit there and judge _me_!" she sounded like she was on the verge of complete and total hysteria.

"But you tortured _me _Nicky! I remember!" he shouted at her and he sounded like he had in Berlin when she was sure he was going to kill her. He saw the way she shrunk away from him and her lip was quivering. He raised the gun to her knee, "tell me…"

He heard her trying to control her breathing, "Jason…" she said his name very slowly."Look at me Jason…" he refused to look up for a minute when he finally he felt horrible, she was on the verge of melting down again, like she did in Berlin. She spoke slowly and clearly, choosing her words with great care. "I really can't fathom what it's like. Only seeing pictures or little clips of your life, but think about it from my point of view… I knew you for almost TEN years Jason. All kinds of crazy things happened in those ten years, the kinky sex _alone_…" she blushed furiously.

"This wasn't sex."

"Well, you were in the program before me. You were already broken down when I got there. I promise I wasn't part of your reprogramming, but I admit I was with others… I also never hurt you under orders or anything like that. Other than that I have no idea what you're talking about. Please give me something more to go on…"

He was so finished with the games, he grabbed her by the back of her neck with his left hand and pulled while also kicking the chair out from underneath her, she fell hard on her knees with a small squeak. He screamed at the top of his lungs, _"I can make it all stop Nicky all you have to do is tell me. Open your mouth and use that tongue for something besides bragging."_

She tried to shrink away from him and tears poured down her face at last and she squeezed her eyes shut, but then her eyes snapped open in realization and then she did the last thing he expected; she let out a "pfffffft" 'as if' sound and laughed a laugh that was too deep and genuine to be faked. "Okay, I take it back… I guess that was torture…" she grinned furiously. He was completely taken aback. "Jason, you dislocated your left foot repelling or jumping over a wall or something while training. You were in horrible pain and I tried to extort an apology from you for something despicable you did to me. You never would say you were sorry, so I had to reset it anyway. Does your foot still click slightly sometime when you run?" He nodded. "That's why. A small fragment of bone broke loose."

"Why was I strapped down?"

"I started doing that after the first time Castel tried to kill me, which was during a procedure. The big baby was afraid of needles."

"Castel?"

"He is the one that repelled through your window in Paris…"

"Oh… so I take it you weren't friends with him?"

She swallowed and all signs of humor or relief left her face, "No, we most assuredly were not friends. You both hated each other too. Let just say he liked his job a little too much…"

There was something else there; a very raw nerve… but he left it for now.

He asked distractedly, "What did I do?"

"I have no idea; you beat him up and threw him out the window?"

"No, he jumped… But that's not what I meant and you know it. What did I do to you?" he asked sadly.

She looked at him intently, "I'll never tell you that. You always regretted doing it and always wanted to take it back and now in your own mind you have. You can shoot me, but I'm not going to burden you with that amount of guilt."

"Is that why they took you away?"

"You remember that? Geez, Jason do you remember any good things, like ever?"

He nodded, "Yes, but usually there are no explanations needed there."

"Fair enough… so no good questions at all?"

"I have weird dreams about having sex with a female demon… like a real demon."

All signs of amusement left her face and replaced with a blank slate, "That was at Halloween, it was a mask…"

His dreams and flashbacks from that night were always weird to him, not necessarily because of the mask or the sex, but the way he felt… almost demonic in his seditiousness. "Oh, okay. I thought I was insane… Do you have a tiny tattoo of a ladybug right next to your…"

"WELL," she cleared her throat, blushing furiously, "back to the bad questions." Then she murmured, "You are such a pig Bourne. Of all the things you could remember about me, you remember that…"

He smiled slightly, "Where did they take you? I remember an Asian woman attacking me about you being taken away someplace horrible?"

"That's irrelevant to you…"

"I'll make that determination…"

"No you won't. I wouldn't tell you then and I won't now. Next question…"

Knowing a lost cause, "Who was she?"

"I assume it was Reina Tanaka, another female asset. She never told me she attacked you… how did she do? "

"She won from what I recall…"

"…'at a girl," she smirked.

"So, you sent all the assets after me?"

"Yes."

"Who was the one you sent for me in India?"

"Oh, not him… he was Blackbriar. I was out of the CIA then, Abbott came and basically abducted me to help track you down after that…"

"You were out of the CIA?"

"I keep forgetting you don't know the stuff that was going on in the background. Yeah, after they said you killed Conklin I was 'debriefed' for almost three months. Basically I was a prisoner and drugged and tortured for information, things that they already knew. They kept trying to get me to say you killed Conklin, which made no sense. You would have killed us both in the office, not wait for him to go into the middle of the street and gun him down in public. They wanted me to sign a report saying that you did so they could use it later to justify hunting you to the ends of the earth for murdering your own section chief. I knew if I signed it I would have an 'accident' so I couldn't recant later."

"…three months," he muttered. "Were you the handler for the female assets?"

"No, but they wouldn't have used their handler for fear of cross contamination, too many eggs in one basket."

"Who else is there? Who else knew everyone and had the connections, but was low enough to still get their hands dirty?"

She shrugged, "Magpie maybe? Or, Danny Zorn but he was stateside and he is dead now… Abbott murdered him…" her voice shook slightly, there was something more there as well but he let it go for now.

"Magpie?" he asked.

"Her name is Margret; she was sort of like the secretary for Hirsch. I think she was one of the first female assets."

"So, she would have known all the players and had contacts at all levels?"

"Sure. Why?"

"I think she was the linchpin to fold up the entire operation if it ever went south."

Nicky frowned fiercely, "Oh, brilliant… so you thought I was that person?! That's what all this is about? You think that I put out orders on everyone just to save the CIA some bad PR? _Wow_, you really don't remember me at all do you…?"

"Actually the votes still out… So, you didn't send the asset after Marie?"

"For the last time, no I didn't send them after Marie. I happen to have liked her…"

"Okay, well… Wait, huh? What did you just say?"

She looked like someone had run over her foot with a car, "damn it…"

He stood up so fast it knocked over the folding chair he was in and startled her, "Out with it… How would you even know her?"

She sighed, "Because I met her…" she said sheepishly as though he might hit her with the gun."I went and found her after Paris, in Greece at her scooter shop."

"Bullshit, she would have told me."

She laughed, "No, she wouldn't have…"

"Why?" he asked genuinely sounding confused.

"Well, this is going to take awhile and is all of a non-business nature, are you sure you want to do this now?"

"Yes."

"Well I'm not. Besides pissing me off, we've been here too long. Do you have any other questions you need to threaten me with a gun for me to answer? Or, are you ready to put two in the back of my head and move on, because I am so done tolerating your paranoia…"

"You said we weren't stargazing but you were finding out where the base was, where was it?"

"Jesus Jason, just let it go! What are you going to do raid the place? You pushed everything to the limit, have you looked at yourself? You look like a zombie Jason. Please just let it go, let's go to Fiji or something and relax for awhile. You at least need to heal and to rest. It's over; you are the driving force now. Let it lie and let's move on with our lives."

"Where is it Nicky?"

She shook her head and locked her jaw. "No. I'll take you there, but we are in this together this time."

"No. Where is it?"

"If I was with you in New York I would have been on the roof in a chopper and you wouldn't have needed to jump off a skyscraper…"

"No, where is it?"

"You're going to have to shoot me or take me. I will _never_ tell you Jason Allen Bourne. I refuse to help you kill yourself." He could tell by her firm resolute stare that she wasn't bluffing and she was tense and holding her breath, expecting the bullet to come. Jesus, how can she be that in fear of him and still care about him?

"Who was the asset in India?"

"No, I'm not outing anyone so you can kill him. He said you were driving the car, but then you weren't. He didn't mean for her to die. He was just doing a job. Besides, in his debriefing he said you had a chance to kill him and didn't. Why kill him now?"

"I never said I was going after him, I just wanted to know his name."

"The name he goes by is Kirill. Killing Marie shook him up Jason; she was like Nitsky's wife was to you. He wasn't the same after that. Last I heard he was working as an instructor or professor or something, he's out of the game," she saw him tense at the word game and expected a Conklin type rant about it not being a game, but he let it go.

"Why didn't you tell me about Hirsch?"

She had known this question was coming before her plane even landed, "Because Jason, you had to hear it from him. You would have sought him out no matter how much I told you; the only difference is that my way was more shocking and may have triggered more flashbacks than merely telling you would. I am a physiatrist Jason, there was no certainty either way and I only had seconds to decide. I chose that way because if it didn't work, or you couldn't find him, or he was dead, I could always tell you later. It couldn't be done the other way around though."

She shook her head as if to clear cobwebs, "Jason, the only thing I have ever wanted is for you to be happy? Ask yourself Jason, when will enough be enough? If you stop kicking ant piles the ants will stop biting you… If we disappear they will stop actively looking for us, and then if we stay out of the criminal databases and off the News," she laughed forgetting for a moment she was all over the tabloids then he laughed too, "we would be fine…"

He cut in, "But we would still be looking over our shoulder…"

"_We always will be, no matter what Jason! No, matter what!"_ she squeaked in a higher than normal tone. She cleared her throat, he was looking at the gun in his hand, "Look at me Jason," he complied, "If none of this happened and you killed Wombosi and came back and we both quit and they happily let us retire, we would still be looking over our shoulders! Foreign Intelligence services and terrorists would still always look for us, you know this! Please, I'm begging you to let it go!"

He reached for his side and pressed a button on his phone and looked at the closed door, "Yeah,"

{We have a problem… they've found you,} Paz said in his ear piece.


	13. Chapter 13: Reeducation

Chapter 13

Re-education

1999

Jason and Reina became increasingly worried about Nicky's diminished mental capacity which they saw little improvement in the next few days. They tried to watch her, which was difficult for just the two of them and soon word of her condition spread.

None of the others ever knew what exactly happened, but Castel became severely injured and the rumor for a long time was the Bourne had actually killed him. It was speculated the Bourne had either found Castel taking advantage of Nicky or maybe overheard him planning to and subsequently beat him into the pavement. The rumors were mostly fact, only it was actually the Professor that caught Castel and the only reason he didn't kill him was the child like Nicky begged him to stop.

Either way Reina had a talk with Nicky about her private areas being private and not to let anyone see or touch them without Nicky asking Reina. Even after Nicky recovered this part stuck and Nicky often called her or emailed her for advice on men she was seeing, it could've been a coincidence but Reina didn't think so.

The real evidence of Nicky's recovery happened on the morning after the incident with Castel. Reina came to take her to breakfast and Nicky was dressed in the clothes Reina had laid out for her and sitting on the edge of the bed, which was all normal enough. The change was in her face and her eyes. Her eyes were now focused and scanned everything in sight and looked very calculating, her face though had a slightly evil smile and her voice was deeper and eerie, "Good morning Reina…"

Reina mouth hung open for a moment, "Good morning, you hungry?" Reina tried not to look shaken, but Nicky reminded her of the guy on Full Metal Jacket that lost it and killed his drill sergeant. She had definitely had some sort of psychotic break. Nicky slowly nodded, "okay well come on then, I'm glad you're feeling better."

She walked more briskly than usual to her prearranged meeting place on the patio with Bourne who had collected breakfast for all of them. Jason immediately saw the change as well even without the eye motions from Reina. "So, how are you two?" he asked cautiously.

"Good morning Jason," Nicky greeted in the eerie voice.

"Well, you seem different. Glad your sounding better, is your mom better? "

"She's dead," Nicky groaned and it sounded like she was fighting back a cackle.

"Sorry to hear that. Well, we start a new batch of classes today, maybe you could come and sit in if you're feeling up to it," Jason probed.

Reina nodded, "Yeah, it would be good for you Nicky. I'm sure you can observe even though you are on light duty right now," it sounded like Reina was just trying to keep from being alone with her and Bourne couldn't blame her, she was creeping him out.

Nicky stood up as if to leave, "Not yet, eat something first Nicolette. Jason was nice enough to get this for you."

They finished eating as soon as they could and went to sword fighting, it was a short two week course but it was required. In class several things happened that hadn't occurred before not that anyone could remember anyway.

The instructors always asked for volunteers, which allowed you to pick your opponent. No one in the military volunteers for anything, which is why everyone was shocked to see Nicky hop up from the mat after listening to the instructor and strode over to the swords spread out on the mat and stuck her foot under the hilt and kicked it into the air and caught it in her right hand and then did the same with the left hand. She strode over to the class and tossed one of the swords and Jason caught it.

Reina whispered to Jason, "She's good Jason."

They both squared off and once the instructor blew the whistle Jason rarely saw his sword again that day unless it was flying through the air. She would disarm him and beat him mercilessly. Her sword, a saber, had a blunt edge and wasn't cutting him but it felt like he was being whipped by an old metal car antenna. The instructor, the same that had done wrestling, was letting her get in a healthy amount of blows after he was disarmed.

The reeducation of Jason Bourne lasted all week and by the time Saturday came he could barely walk, much less lift his arms. Just when he thought he was able to halfway defend himself, the following week the instructor told them they would be fighting with two swords and in a Close Quarters Combat setting. Nicky continued to call him out every day and Jason gave up on sword fighting almost entirely and started using his environment. He rolled across tables, vaulted sofas, tipped over bookshelves. He blocked her blows with whatever was at hand and became very good at it.

Friday came and Jason hit one of her hands with a vase he had hurled at her and her sword went flying. She charged and the other sword he caught in a thick book he opened and slammed shut and twisted his body away from her, threatening to yank the sword from her hands and she twisted and leaned back to use her body weight to pull the sword free. Out of reflex born of desperation he flung his elbow backwards and caught her square in the nose. He heard a crunch and there was a spray of blood, "Not in the face you asshole," Nicky shrieked as she stumbled off the mat and out the gym exit.

She was outside a few minutes stopping the bleeding and when she came back in her other four cellmates were beating an apparently unconscious Bourne with nightsticks. "Stop it! Stop, you'll kill him!" Nicky ran over and dove into the pile, Reina having been the only one to stop. "Stop it!" she covered him with her body the best she could until the instructor order them to stop. The others only stopped once the instructor told them; it was the instructor who ordered them to beat him for his transgression.

Nicky quickly assessed his injuries, "Reina get the stretcher and a neck brace…"

Reina stared at her panicked eyes, "Nicky, is that you?"

"Now Reina!" she screamed.

They braced him and put him on an injury cart and drove him to the infirmary. They x-rayed him and iced his neck just in case. Hirsch had to drill a hole in his head to relieve cranial pressure from several head blows and several ribs were broken. He was black and blue all over, half from today and half from two weeks of Nicky beating on him. Cranial pressure requires the blood to remain highly oxygenated as too much carbon dioxide caused the blood vessels to swell further, so Bourne was intubated to assist with breathing. On the report it said Hirsch did the procedures, but Nicky actually did them under his close supervision.

Two days later, around four in the morning Nicky awoke to the sounds of Jason struggling against the restraints that were binding him. She jumped up from the spare patient bed and grabbed his hand as he thrashed around, "Jason, its Nicky… stop jerking around. You're intubated; you were a SEAL it's not unlike diving only it's pumping the air for you. Stop! Jason look at me," she looked into his panicked eyes, he noticed her broken nose and black eyes. "It's okay. It hurts because you have fractured ribs. Stop trying to breathe, let the machine do it for you. There you go."

Jason started rapidly started moving his hands into odd shapes, "I'm sorry Jason I don't know sign language." He looked at her incredulously, "yeah, I know. I have been meaning to learn. I know Morse code though, really well actually. How about I just let you write. I'm going to take the restraints off but you can't sit up, or move and if you are going to sleep I have to put them back on. You kept trying to rip it out, agreed?" He nodded and she undid his shackles and hand him a pad and pen.

{How long?}

"I don't know Jason, I didn't see it... But, don't worry, you made up for that short coming in other ways," she smirked and he shot her a bird. "You've been out for almost three days. You were beginning to worry… us."

{You're okay…}

"The hell I am..." he glared at her, "I enjoy these little talks so much Jason. Yeah, it was weird. It was like you knocked something lose. I bet if you knew you could change my personality that fast you would have punched me in the face a year ago." He started convulsing and reaching for the tube, she tried to grab and hold his arms, "Jason stop, you're going to tear something. Calm down, breathe normally," he settled down. "Are you okay, what did it feel like? What's wrong?"

{Don't make me laugh.}

"Oh, I'm sorry about that."

{Do you remember what happened to you?}

"Yes, I do. I don't want to ever talk about that," her face went white to the point of becoming ghostly. He started scribbling rapidly, "Jason, please stop. Please, I never want to think about that again." He saw the look on her face and nodded and flipped to a new sheet.

{What about us?}

"It's fine. Don't worry about it."

{It's not fine. I like you Nicky.}

"_Wow_, 'I like you'. I guess that makes everything okay, huh? So, you trick me into sleeping with you, drug me, degrade me, get me sent to a living hell, let me get fondled by Castel the freaking pervert, then you punched me in the face, but it's okay because Jason Bourne 'likes me'. Wow. I am so glad you don't hate me," a single tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped her face. "What the hell, I don't cry. I never cry…" she said confused.

She snatched the pen from him as he was scribbling, "Shut up. Give me your hand, I want to go back to sleep. Give it to me or I'll sedate you. Good," after she strapped him down she hovered over him. "Let's get this perfectly clear. No, technically you didn't force yourself on me, but I would never have slept with you if I had known it was you. You knew that, I saw it on your face. 'I tricked Parson's, look how cool I am!' Yeah, real cool stud. Enjoy your victory; you are never to speak of this again. Here is the buzzer if you need me. I'm ten feet away okay? Now shut up and let me sleep. I've been here the whole time and I'm tired." Jason could hear her later sobbing, but couldn't tell if she was awake, it almost sounded like she was asleep.

Nicky Parson's recovered from her reeducation, but she had been forever changed from it. She was a genius before, but she definitely lost some IQ points from her ordeal. She was still very intelligent but always felt hazy after that, as though she were slightly stoned. Her reflexes had improved, she thought because she was now confident and she was always very insecure with physical activities previously. She spoke up less frequently in group settings and had lost some of her fire, but was friendlier over all. Jason became more humble and tolerant of others short comings and learned to be more patient and mentor others. Reina learned what it was like to have other people that she could rely on. Castel was returned almost five weeks later and was in worse shape than Nicky when he returned; they figured Hirsch didn't approve of Castel's interference with his star pupil. Every time he looked at Nicky she got the chills, he blamed her for some reason and she knew that she hadn't heard the last of this.


	14. Chapter 14: I remember

Chapter 14

Present day

Central Park

"Are you in position?" Nicky could no longer hear the other half of the conversation without the helmet.

{They've found you, they followed the tire tracks. Both are assets. They are at the outside door, please advise.}

"Let them in, we'll deal with them inside. Avoid killing them if possible, but don't risk yourselves." He flipped out a knife and cut her legs free. She moved her hands to the front, she had used something to crudely saw through one side of the pipe tie, he frowned having obviously missed something. She shook the other hand and he cut the other half off. "Oh, and if something goes wrong don't shoot Nicky if she comes out first, she's righteous."

{Understood, I am moving up…}

She was obviously insulted, but not surprised. She whispered, "we'll have words about this later…" as she picked up the gun. She pointed to the silencer and he nodded, she made sure it was screwed on tight, cocked the hammer and flipped the safety off. She heard the outer metal door open noisily and she knew Bourne had left it without being lubricated on purpose. He pointed her to the opposite wall, behind the door and at him the other then reached up and unscrewed the naked bulb in the ceiling, plunging them into darkness. Before the light went out he saw her put on her coat and she stuffed her watch in her pocket and she grabbed one of the helmets and took it with her.

They waited there for several long minutes and she focused on breathing deeply to oxygenate her blood and hoping her eyes would adjust in time. She knelt down on one knee and waited. She stretched some and shook her hands vigorously to rush blood to them, a trick fighters use to make their hands heavier.

The waiting was irritating; finally she heard the door knob turn and the door opening slowly. Very little light came in; they must have turn out the outer light. She tossed the helmet to her right, to the wall opposite the door where it landed with a crash. Both men turned their guns and fired. Nicky and Bourne fired as well. Nicky's first shot hit the man closest to her in the hands or maybe she hit his gun, he grunted as the weapon flew from his hand.

She fired a second shot but her gun jammed, you see the second gun had a tracking bullet as well. They had broken into her hotel room safe to plant the bugs, the only time she was unarmed. She had to leave them both to go into the court house. They had been on her since before she outed herself, having met her at the airport. They knew she would either come for Bourne or go to Landy. They had expected her to fly herself or go first class, but they would have found her no matter how she came.

The second asset swung toward Nicky and fired a volley of shots as Jason jumped him from behind. She would've been killed if she had been standing instead of kneeling. Jason kicked him behind the knee causing him to fall backward and the gun to pivot upward. Bourne grabbed the weapon and twisted it backward hearing the man's finger break. Bourne's opponent was small for a man at five eight and wiry, but very fast. He dropped to his knees and looped his arms between Jason's legs and stood, pulling Jason backward onto his ass. Jason grabbed the back of the man's collar and took him to the ground with him.

The second man rushed Parsons who had been trying in vain to clear her jammed gun in the near dark. He rammed into her and drove her backward like a football sled and rammed her into the wall hard. She clubbed him on the side of his head with the gun and tried to knee him in the groin, but he pivoted his hip and blocked it. "Really Parson's…? I'm going to enjoy this…" he head butted her in the face, splitting her lip as he delivered a flurry of blows to her body, knocking the wind out of her. She couldn't really see his face, but she knew his voice his name was Malcolm Anderson. Bourne was the best asset over all, but he wasn't the best at everything. As far as unarmed combat Malcolm was the best, Bourne had never beaten him. She was as good as dead and she knew it and with the wind knocked out of her she didn't have the ability to warn Bourne.

Jason however had his own problems. He knew his opponent was fast and light, so that dictated taking him to the ground. Even though Jason preferred to fight on his feet he knew he was too injured to fight this one that way. He tried to get him in a sleeper hold as they fell, but the other man was good, he ducked and lowered his head resulting in Jason head locking his face. He saw a glint from a knife and threw his leg over the knife arm and tried to pin it to the ground.

Parsons was struggling in a battle to stalemate Malcolm, she wasn't attacking or countering just moving and blocking. She had managed to get away from the wall and into the open. "Come on Parsons, fight back… I've wanted to smash your face in for years." She was too slow clearing her arm away from a blocked kick and he seized her arm with both hands, one on the upper arm and one on the wrist and drove her extended elbow into a pole trying to bend it backwards. She heard something in her elbow give and shrieked in anguish. She kneed him in the side of his thigh hard which causes your knees to buckle. He took her arm with him twisting it and bending it behind her back and pulling her on top of him.

Bourne heard her shriek and knew he had to wrap this up, he twisted and rolled on top of the other man, knife arm under his leg and pressed both thumbs into his eyes and put his whole body into it until he felt one eye rupture, then the other. The man screamed and dropped the knife, for good measure Bourne punched him in the throat.

He looked over just as Nicky screamed his name… his real name, "_David_!" she was lying on top on her attacker with her back to him as they struggled with a gun. She was holding it, but his hand was on top of hers and turning the gun into her side. She looked at him and her eyes were not pleading, but happy and for a moment a pursed smile played over her face and with a flash of light he was yanked into the past…

_He was standing in a small stone church, in Munich he recalled. Nicky was across from him holding his hands in hers. She was wearing a simple white dress and a tiara of baby's breath flowers that he had made for her the night before, while she was sleeping. A male voice in German asked her, _[_…and do you, Corrine Deschamp, take Nicolas Lemanissier…_] and a litany of images and memories poured out.

The sound of the gunshot jolted him back to reality, "Constance!" he yelled as he sprung to his feet and recognition spread across her face which mixed with the shock and fear of being shot. Nicky grabbed at her side out of reflex and Malcolm turned the gun on Jason just as he started his charge. Jason was still seeing his life flashing before him as though it was some sort of cruel joke God was playing on him.

He remembered: his sixth birthday party and getting a bike on Christmas. He recalled his mother telling him off about sneaking off with some girl, and later losing his virginity to said girl while camping, catching a touchdown pass in the State Championship, and he and his twin switching places on their girlfriends. He saw his swearing into the Marines, reading his acceptance letter into the SEALS, his Trident Medal being pounded into his chest by his unit, and his first crossing of the equator.

He recalled Hirsch's voice, "Welcome to the program," he remembered wrestling with Nicky and how much it excited him, and then later on Halloween her pulling his mask off then hers "God, I hate you… Come on you jerk; do it…" He remembered sleeping with her the night of September 11th knowing that their lives had changed forever and that she was leaving and he might not ever see her again. He heard Conklin's voice over a year later, "Jason this is your handler, Nicky Parsons…" she winked slightly but her eyes burned with renewed hatred, "Nice to meet you, I've read so much about you…"

He remembered why she was angry, the night before she opened his bedroom door after breaking in, to surprise him on her first night in Paris. She saw him in bed asleep with another woman and he knew that the fact that woman staying the night hurt Nicky more than the sex did, since Nicky could never ever linger. She shot a lamp waking them both, "if I see her again, I'm going to kill her…" she spun on her stiletto heels and he noticed her fishnet stockings under her trench coat as she left.

Later he remembered going to meet her for an appointment and hearing ghostly and sorrowful violin music coming from the loft above her safe house and breaking in to see her crying a river of tears as she played flawlessly, she saw him and hurled a mug at him _"GET OUT_! _GET OUT OF HERE!"_

Then he was fucking her against a wall, in an alleyway outside a nightclub, on her birthday. She was drunk and high on Ecstasy but she had begged him, wanting a normal birthday for once in her life.

Then he saw her bleeding out on a small operating table in an animal clinic as he tried to get a bullet out of her and how helpless he felt then stitching her up, all without anesthesia. Her skin was waxy and green and he remembered fearing that she wouldn't survive the procedure, much less the night.

Then they were ice skating near Christmas in Munich on their wedding night, the city looked like a living snow globe. He held her hair that night as she vomited from eating her weight in roasted hazelnuts and chocolate.

Then she was sick again the next morning, "when was the last time Constance?" she looked at him blankly, he repeated "When was the last _time_…?"

Recognition dawned on her and she flipped through her wall calendar frantically, "eight weeks, but I can't get pregnant Jason?" She said it almost questioningly.

He frowned, "You have a vagina and you are not a virgin, you could be and you're going to the doctor…" he said with a very accusatory look on his face.

He remembered dancing slowly with her in a bar to Oasis's Wonder wall and felt her breath and tears on his neck as she told him the results. Then later the same night on a park bench, "you have to get rid of it Connie, they'll kill us if they find out," she flashed him an incredulous look of disgust "aren't you going to ask 'is it mine?', you're such an asshole _David_," and she left, her heels clicking loudly on the patio tiles, he knew better than to follow her.

Sometime later in her office, "Here's your mission," she dropped the folder unceremoniously on to the desk in front of him. It was labeled Wombosi, Nykwanna, He studied it in complete silence for several long minutes, as she exuded hatred into the room the whole time. He got up to leave, "How was the appointment yesterday?" she glared daggers at him so harshly that he suddenly wondered if she was pointing a gun at him under the desk; she had kept her left hand out of view at all times.

"I got tied up in traffic…" she lied, her eyes daring him to call her on it. He hadn't offered to go with her to get the abortion and he hadn't called to see if she was okay that night either.

"Connie, we both agreed…"

She cut in as her eyes narrowed, "No, you decided for the three of us." He glared at her for the obvious barb, "I'm keeping it David. I'll tell them it's someone else's; Lord knows I wish it was. Just leave me alone. Please don't ever call me Constance again; we're over as of now. I only want to see you if it's about business. Just get out," he shut the door in shame and heard her sob on the other side of the door. He knew he should go back but didn't.

He remembered sitting in the hold of Wombosi's yacht for five days out at sea, trying to figure out how to make it right. He needed to fix it; he had to make it right. 'That's it. I'm out. I deserve to have a family just like everyone else,' he thought and hoped it wasn't too late. He tore himself from cover to go and kill his target, only to see him surrounded by children of his own. He wanted nothing more but to flee, not just the yacht but this life. He remembered the shots and hitting the water and the blackness that had stolen his life.

As if on cue, the light level in the room rose slightly so that he could clearly see the gun turning on him and down the barrel. The gun was fifteen feet away and there was nothing in the room to duck behind. He saw the man's cold eyes behind the iron sights and Bourne flinched as the shot came, Malcolm's head jerked sideways as the left side of his skull was blown out.

Jason's head whipped over and saw Paz standing in the door soaking wet and panting. Despite wanting to rush to Nicky's side, Jason stopped to tighten the light bulb. "Paz, she's hit," Paz looked at her sprawled on the ground, she was trying to sit up but her left arm and side were hurt. Paz walked by the second man and saw that he was blinded and shot him once causing both Nicky and Jason to duck on instinct. "What did you do that for?" Jason demanded.

"You used my name. Besides, he can't run blind and they would kill him anyway."

They both knelt at her side, Paz on the wounded side where he moved her coat to the side and ripped the side of her shirt open, "move your hands, let me look."

She lifted a gloved hand that was wet with blood and motioned Jason closer, "David, you remember?" she asked softly.

He nodded, "I remember Constance," he ran his hand through her hair in a soothing way.

"Kiss me David…" he knelt all the way over in a way that reminded him of giving mouth to mouth. They kissed gently for a moment, their heads upside down, until she pulled back slightly and exhaled as her breathing stopped and her hand fell slowly to the ground.

*****Some of the flash backs refer to other Bourne stories on this site, if you see yours in there it's me paying loving tribute, thanks for your hard work.**


	15. Chapter 15: Grassy knoll

Chapter 15

2001

Jersey Island

Two years into their training Nicky had begrudgingly forgiven Jason; he worked hard to gain her trust. Her relations with the Professor had come to an end, Nicky didn't know it but Reina was the reason behind it. She told him off for constantly ignoring Nicky when someone else was around. She would walk up to him and he would blatantly refuse to acknowledge her. Reina knew that either he was doing this because he knew Nicky didn't have the proper social skill set to tell him off, or because he was through with her and didn't want to man up and tell her. So, he finally told her he wasn't interested, she was fine with it albeit confused as to the reason.

Nicky had finally passed some courses top in her class; she came in with the highest score ever in overland night time navigation, which to normal people means 'wandering around lost in the woods at night'. Once she plotted her course, using the stars was easy to her. She also got to practice her piloting skills including getting to fly jets, mainly captured enemy fighters. She also got to land and to take off on a carrier and learned to fly helicopters. She came back from these trips giddy and it helped her focus. She had to learn basic SCUBA and to skydive, neither of which she was a fan of. Jason had to talk her into jumping out of the plane.

Reina nearly failed the night navigation and SCUBA. It turns out that she had a fear of suffocation and never knew it. She burned through the air in her tanks at twice the normal rate and had panic attacks until Jason made her understand that the gear wasn't suffocating her, but keeping her from suffocating and to slow her breathing. She excelled in computer hacking, cyber warfare, safe cracking, and code breaking. They made her learn Korean and Chinese when she wanted to learn Italian and Greek, mainly because she thought the men were hot.

Jason bombed sword fighting and wasn't very good at reading people or triage. He continued to excel at what people laughingly called Jackie Chan fighting, using things that were around him in a fight and was finally able to not total cars with regularity.

In the spring of '01 Bourne and Parsons were randomly selected to partner as sniper and spotter. They blew the course away in every category the first month with Jason shooting and Nicky working as a spotter. A spotter calculated the range, gravity of the bullet, wind, and angle to set up the shot, but was also supposed to watch the environment around them for approaching troops. The sniper had to make the adjustments to the scope and fire.

The trouble came the next month when they had to switch roles. Nicky didn't trust Jason's math and Jason would rile her up so much that she couldn't shoot straight because she was so mad. "Jesus Christ Nicky! I could understand you not being able to hit JFK, much less McGovern, but could you please hit the car at least? The driver or hell Jackie! Damn! Fuck!" She couldn't remember him cursing like that, much less blasphemy.

"Look the scope must be off or something…"

He grabbed to gun and took the scope off and started snapping off shots at the diorama, "Kennedy and McGovern, the driver, Jackie, the man on the grassy knoll, the man pumping the umbrella, Zapruder! There's nothing wrong with this weapon Parsons!" He slung the rifle and pocketed the scope and opened the hatch to slide out of the tower they were in.

"Wait, where are you going? Jason!"

"To eat and use the bathroom and try to regain my hearing. We have been out here for ten hours! I'll see you at dinner…" he slid down the ladder knowing that she didn't know how to rapidly descend and stormed off to the weapon depot.

"Wait, please! Our final is tomorrow! Jason! _Please_!" she shrieked. He waved over his shoulder and kept walking. He turned in the weapons and headed back to the castle for dinner as the sun slipped below the horizon.

He rounded the ramp to the patio and he heard a mewing sound followed by a long slow _click_ of a hammer on a gun being cocked. He looked over the edge of the railing to see Nicky sitting against a wall with a small pistol in her mouth.

"Nothing is that serious Parsons…"

She looked up startled, "Oh, God… what now? Can't you just let me alone Boy Scout."

"Eagle Scout and nothing is worth your immortal soul…"

She laughed as he walked down the ramp and around to where she was hiding, the place where she took people to make out. "You know I don't believe in that Jason."

"Part of you does, I know it does. They won't kill you; you've come too far…"

She laughed manically, "I _know_ that! If I thought they were going to kill me I would let them do the honors. They will send me back to hell! You have no idea…!"

"No, I don't because you never told me. Regardless, you never quit anything in your life, much less washed out."

"I am not letting them take me back. Not ever."

"But aren't you going to at least take the test?"

"Huh?"

"The range test tomorrow… Shouldn't you at least try? You can always do this tomorrow…"

"Why bother? I can't risk them taking me."

"Look, we can go back out. Let's take an hour break go eat and change clothes and go back out. I know I need a shower…"

They met back out and the tower in an hour and he was already there with a work light set up and a blanket spread out. "I thought you were going to get a shower?" she asked.

"I had to come up with a lesson plan. I forgot you aren't military, I keep assuming everyone here is. We are going to go back to boot camp," she rolled her eyes. "Drop and give me twenty," she glared at him. "Okay, I'm kidding. Seriously, be open to what I'm teaching you. Long before you ever fire a shot in basic you learn every part of your weapon. This is a different gun than earlier, so we get a fresh start. First thing you're going to do is name it."

She took the weapon and looked at the gun quizzically, "Seymour."

He laughed, "Okay? Is there a story there?"

"He is going to help me see more dead people."

"Good attitude, Seymour it is. You are going to break him down and touch every inch of every piece. I will tell you the name of each piece and what they are for. Up there today, you were fighting that other rifle. Seymour isn't the enemy and he isn't a neutral observer. He exists to put bullets were you want them. The three of us are a team. Okay this is how you break Seymour down…"

He made her field strip the weapon five times and made her rub and kiss each piece. "Okay, now I want you to lie down on your back and hold him in both hands. Okay, now I want you to tell us about the stars.

"Umm, okay… that right there is Ursa Major which means Great Bear…"

"I thought that was the Big Dipper?"

"Okay, seriously… be open to what I'm teaching you," she laughed.

"Point taken…" he grinned.

"Some cultures see it as a horse or monkey. _Americans_ know it as the Big Dipper…"

"Well it looks like a spoon; it doesn't look like a monkey…"

"You're only looking at half of it, see those are arms and those are…" he still looked skeptical."Okay, Imagine that galaxy there is poo it just threw."

"It does look like a monkey!" he joked. "Okay, now name them…" She named them and move on to the next constellation and so on. She realized that he was sleeping but let him nap for a few minutes before gently saying his name, his eyes snapped open alert and instantly amped and she could tell that he had no idea where he was.

"It's Nicky; we are on the snipers range…"

"Oh, right. So, how does he feel?"

"He feels great. I'm sorry I was freaking out back there."

"Don't be, it's my fault that you are even in this situation." They were lying in opposite directions but face to face, they both rolled on their sides. He stared into her upside down eyes, "I don't want you to be afraid tomorrow. Those assholes will never lay another hand on you, my promise to God. They'll have to come over me and if they take you when I'm not around I will cut pieces off Hirsch until they bring you back…"

"You're serious…"

"Deadly," he hadn't intended it as a way to seduce her, but even he could read her body signals. Her breathing increased and her head nodded slightly with each breath as if in affirmation. Her lips were slightly parted and she was exhaling through her mouth. She looked into his eyes deeply then stared at his lips, which according to his instructor meant that she was imagining being kissed.

"Nicky, I would like to make a move on you, but…"

She cut in, "I'd like that…" she lifted the rifle and put it on the other side of her body and when she looked but his face was closer to her and he leaned in for a kiss, they were kissing upside down, but it was wonderful and tender. Many long minutes later, "Wow, note to self… kissing upside down is hot," she purred.

"Yeah, so do you want to get to it?"

"Sure, I'm game…"

"Okay. Do you trust me?"

She hesitated, "yes."

"Okay, just trust me; I'll get you all the way there…"

He stood up and gave her a hand up, he started scanning the grounds and she gave a half shrug and unbuttoned her pants and started to unzip them when he said, "I figure we should skip to the JFK range. It will be easier to see in the dark and it gave you the most trouble?" He turned to look at her just as she realized they were talking about completely different things, she dropped her hands to her sides just in time.

"Yeah, that's sounds great," she tried to wipe the disappointed look of her face, but she apparently failed as he raised an eyebrow. "I'm just trying to be open to your expert tutelage."

"Snarky… but it's a vast improvement from earlier Parsons."

They climbed into the tower and he made all the computations and checked them again. "Okay here strap this around your arm," he handed her a piece of latex strap. "I want you to be able to feel your heart beat. Okay good now just sit there and get comfortable looking through the scope at different targets. You are going to fire exactly one bullet at the primary target. That's all you get. Sometimes snipers watch their target for hours waiting for the perfect shot. Take your time."

After many long minutes of Nicky looking through the night vision scope she said, "I want to take the shot…"

"What did you _say_?" he asked playfully.

She glanced at him and smiled, "I want to take the shot… You were getting in my head, changing my mindset."

"Yes. Now look through the scope, tell Seymour that everything's going to be okay. Feel your heart beat, slowly exhale and fire between heartbeats."

She did as he asked and slowly squeezed the trigger and the rifle kicked, she looked back at Jason who was staring down with a night vision glasses. He took them off and smiled at her, "Two targets are down…"

"I did it!" she shrieked.

She spun around and he caught the barrel with his palm, "Whoa, secure the weapon. Seymour gets excited too."

"Oh yeah," she put the safety on, removed the clip and ejected the spent round. She sat the rifle on the floor, when she stood up and turned around he was but a few inches from her.

"You forgot to button your pants…"

"Who says I forgot. I didn't think you noticed."

He smiled, "You're kidding right? I just didn't want to distract you. Are you sure you want this?"

"Oh yeah…" she said as he heard a zipper unzip and suddenly realized it was his and he wondered if she could pick pockets.

"How old are you again?"

Nicky smiled slyly, "Old enough Mr. Webb…"

"How did you…" her hand shocked him into silence.

"I'm a spy remember?"

Their reconciliation was less than stellar, besides being under the stars. The mosquitoes were horrendous and the tower seemed to sway making both of them nervous. They stopped short of actual intercourse and agreed to celebrate tomorrow, either way, in her room.

Dr. Hirsch had other plans however. That night he slipped into Nicky's room with two guards and fired a tranquilizer gun at her sleeping form. As soon as the dart hit the sheet he knew it was a decoy in the bed, made from pillows. He fumbled in his coat pocket for another dart, knowing he was made.

They all three jumped as a cold voice said from the darkness, "Don't bother, no one else is ever up this late…" Dr. Hirsch clicked on the light, illuminating Bourne sitting in the corner in the dark. He had murder in his eyes and the sniper rifle was on his lap. He winced at the light having obviously been sitting in the dark a long time. "I apologize for the rudeness I didn't mean to eavesdrop, I get terrible migraines and the darkness always helps, among other things…" he said as he took a sip from a Long Island, throwing Hirsch's on words back at him. "She knew you would come tonight, I figured you would at least wait for the exam to be over…"

"Good evening Mr. Bourne. You're out of bounds."

"No, the rules read that I can't stay with a woman in the women's dorms. There isn't a woman here. Sorry guys, but the surgery isn't covered by the insurance. Please leave us, _now_ or I will perform it for you free of charge."

The two other men were already leaving before Hirsch motioned them off, trying to save face. "You should have been a litigator Jason."

"Mr. Bourne is fine, really. We all get that this whole place is a chess board with you playing both sides against each other. But you sacrificed your queen already. Nicky is off limits from now on, as is Tanaka. Her father is dead because of you. The three of us are too close to the end of all this to put up with this shit. I know that the three of us are transferring back stateside in two weeks to the New York office, for our reintroduction to the wild or whatever you call it." Hirsch's mouth hung open for a split second in shock. "Until then, anything that happens to Nicky or Reina will happen to you. Now get out of here, you're dismissed."

Hirsch left quietly and smiled the whole way to his room, he was beginning to give up hope. Bourne had finally taken the bait. He had placed them together for just this reason and now finally he had his carrot on the string.


	16. Chapter 16: Florence Nightingale

Chapter 16

Present Day

Central Park

Jason was looking at Nicky's body and wished that Paz wasn't here, he felt like he was interfering with the most intimate of moments. He had forgotten how small she was, how frail. Her permanent air of arrogance and aloofness made her seem larger in life, now with it gone she seemed childlike.

Paz took Nicky's other hand off of his lap and flung it unceremoniously onto her stomach and stood up quickly, "get the hell up and lets go, we shouldn't linger." Jason bolted upright ready to strangle him for his insolence, Paz kicked her thigh lightly, "Get up Nicky, and let's go."

Bourne looked down, aghast. He saw one of Nicky's eyes was half open and she was trying to keep from laughing, "I totally got you Jason…"

He stammered, "That's not funny…"

She clutched her side with her left hand and reached up for help with her right, "You've pointed a gun at my head what, four times? I sorry, but you earned that one." She looked seriously at Paz, "How bad is it really?" Jason felt his blood boiling, but held his tongue. He didn't remember everything, far from it, but he recalled enough to know how volatile their relationship was.

"Two serious lacerations and some shrapnel, but nothing pierced the abdominal wall. You will need stitches. What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything, but I think I know…" she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the destroyed remains of her great-grandfather's watch, a bullet imbedded in the back of it under his name. The inner pieces and face of the watch had been blown out.

"I'm sorry Nicky…" Jason muttered.

She let out a "Pfffft," noise and laughed, "Don't be. Charles would go out drinking with Hemingway, Picasso, and John Barrymore. He loved a good fight story… he wouldn't have had it any other way…" She licked her split lip and stared at Jason with a thousand questions in her eyes and a mischievous grin on her lips.

Paz looked around, "You two get out of here; I will stash the bodies and clean the place a little. You better not leave the bike here." He looked at Jason, "Are we even?"

"More than even, thanks Paz. You ever need me, just ask…" Nicky flashed Jason a worried look.

Paz laughed, "Don't worry Nicky; I plan on going on a long vacation to somewhere without cell phone reception. I'll see you at the nest later… You better take the bike. "

She leaned over and kissed Paz on the cheek and hugged him, "Thanks Paz, I owe you too. Be safe…"

They grabbed their helmets and Nicky tore the spray painted facemask off hers. "You sure you want to do that, it's still pouring outside…"

"Yeah, riding blind with you is pretty much the most terrifying thing ever… Come on; let's go before I bleed to death for real."

They drove back to the hole in the wall biker bar which was surrounded by an army of Harley's and bikers were all piled around awnings in the area trying to keep out of the rain. The owner had thought ahead and had several rented tents set up and extra waitresses, but it wasn't enough. Jason dropped her near the door and went to find a place to park the bike. She slammed her helmet down on a fire hydrant and pushed her way into the bar. He had forgotten to tell her to walk around to the back and go upstairs.

By the time Jason made his way through the crowd, she was standing at the bar doing a shot. "Oi!" she screamed, getting the bars attention. "My great granddad had a saying, 'if you don't wake up with a new scar, with someone you don't know, or not knowing where you are, then you didn't have a good time! Everything poured from a plastic bottle is on me!" The crowd laughed and cheered, she whistled at an impressive level, "It's wet and cold out, ride smart. There is a Hilton right next door and if they won't rent you a room, then sleep in the freaking lobby…" Jason grabbed her forearm unceremoniously and yanked her out the bar door. Red handed her a bottle of Bacardi and then he clapped at her.

Jason pulled her out the back and up the stairs, "Way to keep a low profile Nicky…" He unlocked the upstairs door and motioned her in.

"People were going to see the blood all over me, now I gave them something else to talk about. They will be here drinking free booze until we are done." She took a joint from her pocket and sniffed it, she had acquired it downstairs from Red before Jason arrived. He unlocked the upstairs door as she lit the joint and took a hit then pulled heavily from the bottle. She saw his glare, "Awe, shucks dad. Lighten up Jason. This is going to hurt like a bitch…" she said as she took her coat off. She unbuttoned her shirt and took it off. "Do you remember your medical training or should I do this?"

"No, I remember it. You're better though."

"Not on myself I'm not," he took a pull from the bottle as he watched her take off her belt and unbuttoned her pants and slipped them off, followed by her shirt. He busied himself in getting the surgical tools he had purchased prepared, even though he knew she was trying to move as attractively as possible. "Kitchen counter?" she asked. He nodded as dropped the skin hooks, needles, and suture scissors in boiling water. He let them boil for a minute and then put them in a small bowl of rum. He laid everything out on clean paper towels and spent several long minutes scrubbing his hands, finger nails, and arms. He looked as her lying on her side on the filthy kitchen counter, in her bra and underwear smoking the last of the marijuana. "Did you remember everything Jason?" she asked hopefully.

"No," he said sadly as he scrubbed his hands, arms, and nail bed. "I doubt I ever will," she looked down sadly. "But, remember a lot of things about us. Good and bad."

He held up the rum 151 she nodded and folded her leather belt, "talk to me, it will help," she asked and put the leather belt in her mouth.

"I remember you giving me my watch as a wedding ring," he held the bottle over the wound and she clutched the lip of the counter as he poured it. She shrieked into the belt and her face contorted in agony. He found it very difficult to continue pouring, "I gave you my St. Michaels necklace, from my conformation." He looked down and saw she was wearing it. St. Michael was the Patron Saint of Battles, but the front looked like she had almost rubbed the fresco off, leaving it a silvery disc.

She pulled the belt out of her mouth and started inhaling twice through her nose and out once from the mouth in a very Lamaze like way. He wanted to go to that topic but knew he shouldn't go anywhere near it, not yet. He started stitching her up, "The engraving on the watch always messed with me, 'God I hate you… -CL.' it sums up our relationship well." She looked at him worriedly until he explained, "Hate meaning Love. You know Fire and Ice." She nodded and managed a smile.

"I remember Conklin almost catching us on your desk that time and that I had to hide under the desk for six hours until he left. I still think the bastard knew someone was under there. I don't think I let you get much work done, and you fed me Oreos but only after you licked the white stuff off suggestively and we passed notes back and forth like high school."

She smiled although she was still in pain, "I forgot about the Oreos, the look on your face was priceless. You gave me the longest foot massage ever and painted my toenails."

"I don't remember that part."

She nodded, "I never told you, but I had crab cakes for lunch, I had such bad gas that day. I had to keep everything in for six hours for fear of killing you."

They both laughed, "I guess I'm lucky you weren't mad at me that day…"

"You have no idea, it was rank. You also wrote 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy' over and over on the inside of the desk. I had to scrub it off later. What else do you remember?"

"I remember beating the crap out of that French guy you were seeing for awhile," she frowned. "Yeah, not my finest hour…"

"I was just trying to get even for the super model bimbo you were seeing…" she smirked.

"What you did to Danny Zorn was uncalled for though."

"What?" he shrugged as he finished the last stitch.

"You almost beat him to death. We were just friends and you saw him leave my place and you yanked him into an alleyway."

"Oh," he said sadly as he applied a bandage. "Well I'm not that person anymore. I'm terrified of some of the things I remember feeling." He helped her sit up, "How's the arm?" she lifted it and he held it, looking at it.

"Oh, it's hyper extended but not broken. It should be fine in a week or two." She rubbed her hand on his cheek, "I know you're not that person anymore. I loved him, but you are a better person…"

"I remember playing my guitar for you; I learned the song from the Crow that he was playing on the roof because I knew you liked it… Then there was the time you were driving us somewhere and got in a fender bender and I insisted on driving and backed into a light pole on the way back."

She laughed, "You were so angry, you were such an asshole about my driving earlier."

"I remember a pair of your red underwear ending up in my whites turning everything pink and you claiming they weren't yours until I started sweating."

She was fighting back laughter, "I never told you the evil part… I balled them up inside your shirt on purpose because I bought you a pink dress shirt and you refused to wear it saying real men don't wear pink… You were wearing pink then…" she giggled.

"That's really evil," he laughed. "I always wondered how someone could forget underwear."

"We got in fight about your hair once, because I didn't want you to cut it short, I liked it long. So, I shaved my head and you had to suffer, pretending that you liked it when it really creeped you out. Looks like you were right about yours though, it looks very nice on you," he absently ran his hand across it.

They were both suddenly aware that she was nearly naked sitting on the counter and he was standing between her parted legs. There was a powerful sacredness to the moment that neither of them felt that they could break, they felt each other's hot breath on their cold skin and stared into each other's eyes for a long minute. Each of them had eyes that were filled with questions, questions to which only the other held the answer. Jason was suddenly afraid that she might retreat and surged forward, while gently lifting and pulling her to the edge of the counter, he was an inch from her lips when she implored, "Wait, wait…" holding a hand between their lips.

He started to wonder how he had messed it up, "What is it?"

"What should I call you?" she asked as she pulled him by the waist until he was firmly between her.

"Jason," he breathed. "I always felt like David was the bad guy…" she nodded and they kissed gently because of her busted lip. She pushed his jacket off and he pulled their guns out and put them on the counter as he kissed her neck and she busied herself with untucking his shirts. He bit her earlobe gently and whispered, "…Nicky?"

It took her a moment to understand as she was already lost in the moment and she nodded vigorously, "Oh, Nicky's fine…Nicky's great. Constance was a bitch." He snorted involuntarily in her ear and she twisted his nipple, "you aren't supposed to agree…" she laughed. She pushed his shirts over his head and the freezing air spilled over him, he hadn't taken the time to turn the radiator on. She rubbed the horrid bullet wound on his left shoulder, which entered from the rear and exited in the front. It was pink and puckered still; he had just removed the last of the stitches a week ago, the wound was about six weeks old. "This isn't from the rooftop…?" she asked rhetorically, but breathless none the less.

"Kirill…" he panted.

"Oh, so Vosen didn't shoot you…" she breathed softly on the scar tissue before softly kissing it and finally dragging her tongue across it.

He shuddered, "No, he shot me in the back…" he said distractedly as he unhooked her bra deftly, before realizing his error.

"What!" she gasped and spun him around and she inspected his body thoroughly from head to toe, as he took the opportunity to take off his jeans. The bruise from the fall that ran up the back of his left leg and under his left arm was still purplish black and sore to the touch. . She looked at the twenty or so lacerations over his body; he held his arms out wide as he spun as if on display. His right hand and left forearm were still bruised from grabbing the seat belt on the police car and wrapping it around himself. She saw him favor his right foot and muttered, "You fractured your second metatarsal again; this is the third time…"

She leaned forward to kiss the other wound and he felt her inhale deeply drawing cold air across his back. "Is it infected?" he asked as she rubbed the other two old bullet wounds that had robbed her of him.

She laughed nervously; she had sniffed the wound to smell for infection. "No, it's fine. Am I that obvious?"

He turned and they locked eyes, "No, I just know you that well…" which made her look absolutely twitterpated

She kissed his bruised right hand and whispered, "I was going to allow you to ravage me on this filthy counter, but now you have me going all Florence Nightingale on you…" she pushed him gently backward and gently slid off the counter and pulled him into the other room. She grabbed the thin mattress from one of the cots and pulled it onto the floor as he turned the radiator on and handed her a clean sheet and blanket. She threw the sheet down and suddenly the asset in him took over, he pushed a dresser in front of the door then returned to the kitchen for their guns. He cleared the jam in hers and dropped the fake bullet in a cup of water and micro waved it for ten seconds.

She smiled from under the covers suggestively, "Come on mister boy scout." He joined her under the covers where she was shivering slightly. She pulled him on top of her; she had discarded her bra and underwear. She felt his erection through his briefs as it rubbed against her and she shuddered. He slowly worked his way from her forehead down her entire body, relearning her body. She was a toe and earlobe person. The area under the arm where a gun would be holstered was especially sensitive, which is where she had been shot on her left side.

He worked his way back up until his head was between her thighs and saw the tiny ladybug tattoo, almost as small as a real one near her hood. He touched it with his nose and then kissed it, she giggled, "You always do that, I feel like you're paying it tribute or something…"

"Maybe I am," he sighed over her exhaling onto her exposed skin, she locked her legs behind his ass and forced him upward but he was ready for it and lifted his head and she groaned in mock frustration. Her skin was very smooth, as though she had been waxed and the thought of her going to the spa in the middle of all this made him laugh. "I suppose you want me to use my tongue for something besides bragging?" he exhaled over her skin again as his hands drifted up her side to caress the sensitive skin under her arms. He saw that she had a horizontal scar from a Caesarean section and his hands itched to trace it and he wanted to ask but thought better of it.

"Pl-please…" she stammered, lifting her pelvis toward him. He nudged her clit with his nose before lightly licking the entire length of her. He vaguely recalled not being a fan of oral reciprocation; specifically he remembered calling it being a 'bottom feeder'. He would do it, but took no pleasure from it. Apparently that was David's school of thought because he enjoyed torturing her until he thought she was going to lose her voice.

She kept begging for him to stop and to come to her, but it wasn't until she murmured in French, [Monsieur, please… enough…please no more…] that he slid up her body. He had snuck out of his boxers a few minutes before and he covertly wiped his mouth on the way up her body.

[I am sorry to torture you so…] they both moaned as his penis raked over her. [May I?], he asked seriously, knowingly trying to right a wrong. She handed him an unwrapped condom she had snuck from her purse, which he quickly rolled on.

She smiled in adoration and nodded, "Please Jason…" she whispered and their eyes remained locked as he entered her slowly. When he was all the inside her she locked her legs around him, "Oh, God…" she pursed her lips together."Jason, I tried to be faithful… I had a thing after Paris…" he couldn't help but notice the apprehension on her face.

He laughed in a kind way, "I understand given the circumstances," he would have been with Marie in India then. "Jason wouldn't have expected otherwise. I'm not David anymore, he was the jealous one. Wait, Paris… that was years ago…" She smiled softly and spurred his ass with her feet, but he didn't move, he looked like he wanted to get something off his chest. "But I remember you being very…"

She quickly twisted his nipple hard again, "Please don't finish that sentence. Enough talking, move your ass Bourne before you fuck this up…" she laughed.

Their love making was furious, but lasting. Nicky truly was loud and after every orgasm the bar would explode into raucous cheering and cat calls causing her to blush. "You're not easy to share a wall with…" he panted.

"I guess not… I bet you're wishing you brought my belt instead of the guns," she giggled. "I see that look in your eyes; we're out of time aren't we?"

"Yeah, we've been here way too long," he said as he looked at the door for the third time in five minutes.

She was on top of him and whispered, "Its okay…" she started grinding on him anew and he gave her a 'you have to be kidding me' look."No, it's _really_ okay. You are playing against triple coverage this time." He still look apprehensive, "okay, well we can…" and she started to move off of him but he grabbed her waist and they both pumped furiously until he came so hard he was paralyzed and she kept grinding on him until he relaxed and his eyes looked heavy. She held the condom in place as she dismounted and quick curled up with her head on his shoulder and he rolled to get up, "No, you don't Mister. I need five minutes please." He glared at her; "just five minutes…" he put his arm around her, spooning as his answer.

"Nicky…" no other words came out, he shut his mouth then opened and closed it again terrified of saying the wrong thing, she looked over her shoulder at him. He reached down and traced her scar as though it was well known to him.

"Oh," she said bashfully, "I kept missing my appointment… Somewhere there is a room painted a very light pink," she said warmly. "You have passed on your beautiful blue eyes and I have passed down my nose and apparently my lungs to a future generation. Family members have been assuming our parental duties with the very clear knowledge that, if our lives ever stop involving high explosives, we might want to reclaim our offspring," she said sadly. "They are wonderful about my visitations though, we can go and visit… if you want to I mean…"

"Of course I do… we might have to steal her back though…" she turned her head away from him, he knew her eyes were watering."I feel like you should know that when I was in the dark hold of Wombosi's yacht for five days that I was thinking about what I was going to do. I was going to come and get you and run. I prayed it wouldn't be too late, that you didn't change your mind. I went to kill him and he was in a room asleep with all his kids, and I couldn't do it."

She whirled around so fast she almost elbowed him in the face, she was crying freely. She gaped at him, "Really? That means more than you could know," and she kissed him so vivaciously that they both tasted blood as her lip reopened.


	17. Chapter 17: Complicated Questions

Chapter 17

2003

Greek island of Mykonos

Marie Kreutz had been living on the Greek island of Mykonos under an assumed name for six months. She had purchased a small scooter rental company and seemed to be living a happy but solitary life. Jason had told her to vary her routine drastically, and actually putting down roots and staying in one place was drastic for her. The gypsy in her wanted to pull up stakes and move, but she held the line. She was afraid at first that if she moved too much Jason wouldn't be able to find her, now she wondered if he was ever going to bother to look.

The first day the friendly French woman came in to rent a scooter Marie thought nothing of it. The second day when she returned the scooter Marie thought she saw a gun in the woman's purse and suspected. The third day when the woman returned the scooter she knew she was CIA, everything about her was too right, too perfect. It was at closing time exactly and as the woman reached the door to leave she reached into her purse for something and Marie braced herself against the counter waiting for the woman to turn and shoot her or to lock the door and flip the Open sign to Closed like some cheesy movie. When she opened the door to leave, sunglasses in her hand, Marie was shocked into action.

"Wh-when are go-going to do it?" she stammered over herself in English.

The woman turned and raised an eyebrow, "I'm sorry?" the woman said in English with a French accent.

"Please just do it. Cut the act, you are with them right, the CIA? You're here to kill me?"

She closed the door gently, clearly shocked as anyone would be at such an accusation. "Kill you? No, I'm not here to kill you…" she said in normal English.

Marie's eyes narrowed, "I-I knew your Fr-French was too perfect, too text book… You went to the same lying school. You're with the CIA." The American woman clutched her purse strap and crossed her arms in a very tell tale way that only a jealous woman could, it was the international sign for 'keep away from my man'. "Oh… you're his girlfriend or you're his wife aren't you?" The woman shifted her feet, a signed of affirmation, before she could stop herself.

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to meet you," she said looking at the ground. "He'll be happy with you… Goodbye Marie." She turned to leave and put her hand on the door handle before Marie stopped her, "Please don't go. You came so far, yes? It is closing time anyway, please eat with me. I hate eating alone; everyone looks at you like your handicapped."

"Yes, I hate that too. I know French and my German is serviceable?"

"English is fine, sorry I talk over words when I'm excited… doesn't matter which language I am speaking. There is a nice place within walking distance…" she said as she came out from behind the counter with a ledger and a huge purse that she stuffed the book in. Nicky knew it was a travel bag as well, in case she had to run, everything she wanted to keep was in there. "You rented the bike under Corrine Deschamp, but this is not your real name?"

Nicky laughed, "That's a complicated question. I don't think I am just one person anymore; my taxes are filed under Nicky… Nicky Parsons," they shook hands, "Marie Kreutz…"

The restaurant was family owned and the meal was an all night affair and Nicky soon realized this was Marie's intention, so she could maximize their time together. Marie finally plunged into their chief topic, "So… you and Jason…?"

Nicky smiled very slightly, "So, me and Jason…" she sighed deeply and honestly as she placed her napkin on the table, "were very complicated. If he does ever start remembering me, he will be utterly confused… I remember all of it and I am still trying to figure out what the hell happened," they both laughed lightly.

Nicky said guiltily, "you know after it happened, the CIA didn't know Jason was shot or lost his memories. We just knew that he was alive, wasn't checking in, didn't complete his mission and was traveling with some woman…" she rubbed her stomach absentmindedly which wasn't missed by Marie.

Marie sat all the way back in her chair, her mouth open, "and you thought he was leaving both you and the CIA?"

Nicky nodded, "A lot of people thought that, of course they didn't know he and I were as serious as we were. But, it was a rough few weeks for me, then I saw him and he had absolutely no idea as to who I was and I actually wished I had been right the first time. It's a better feeling to be unwanted than totally forgotten, trust me…"

"You had no way to know that he wasn't leaving, anyone would've thought that. I half think his isn't coming for me, it's been so long. I thought I hid too well, but I guess not if you found me…"

"I bet he's been here already…"

"What?"

"I bet he checks on you every month or so, he knows it's too soon to come and get you." Marie looked around causally, "Don't bother, you'll never see him. Besides if he was here I would be dead. He knows I am black ops. I risked my life coming here."

"Why did you come here?"

"I wanted to know that he would be happy, I wanted to give you my blessing."

"B-But why? Why would you do this thing?"

"Because, I love him enough to let go, do you?"

"What kind of question is this Nicky?"

"All I want is for him to be happy, so I have an idea. I promise to stay away and never come here or contact him and give you your chance to both live happily ever after…"

"Okay?" Marie sounded confused.

"Will you promise the same thing? If he ever remembers enough to seek me out and want to find me, or if you break up, will you let me have my chance at a happily ever after?"

Marie drained off half a glass of wine and sat back, "Scheiße! {Shit!} What kind of deal is this? This is so messed up… I feel like Faust!" Nicky fought back a laugh.

"Think about it, if he starts remembering me, do you really want to live the rest of your life lying next to him while he dreams about this mysterious ghost woman from the past that you can't compete with?" Marie glared at her, knowing she was right.

"B-But what if this is years from now and we have c-children and things? How is this fair to any of us then?"

Something past over Nicky's face, as if she were wiping it clean of emotion, she had seen Jason do this many times, "That won't be an issue… we're not supposed to have children," she her hand fell to her stomach again.

"What if Jason and I do?"

"No, neither Jason nor I are supposed to be able to have children. We were sterilized. I don't think he ever knew, they didn't tell him and I never had the heart to."

"Scheiße… Who would do this thing… who would agree to it?"

"We all agreed to give up everything and all semblance of a normal life. We were to have no attachments. No spouses, kids, family, friends… nothing. Our old families think we are all dead; I supposedly died in a plane crash… Sorry I had to be the one to tell you." Nicky refilled their wine glasses from the carafe.

"But you did get pregnant, didn't you?" she asked accusingly.

Nicky glared at her, Marie was a lot sharper than she had given her credit for. "Yes. Odds of impregnation with a vasectomy are a hundred to one and with a ligation it's a thousand to one."

"So, it was what… one in a hundred thousand? Scheiße! {Shit!} That sounds like Jason, he loves doing the impossible. But, I can't do this. How old is it?"

"Eight weeks old... But, don't let that influence your decision…"

"Huh? How would that not… oh das Schwein{pig} … He didn't want it did he?"

Nicky shrugged, "we kind of fought about it and then he left and never came back."

Marie looked scandalized and tried to pour from and empty bottle, she shouted at the waiter "Oi!" and shook the bottle with rudeness born of frustration. "He is a nice guy now, but the old Jason sounds like filth. But, I really don't feel comfortable with this Nicky, it feels very underhanded…"

"Yes, but if I show up and tell him about us he might go with me by default, always wanting to have stayed with you. Then he is with me thinking about you. The only way we know that he gets what he wants is to let him remember and make his choice on his own."

"You've really thought this through. So, were you married, engaged, girlfriend what?"

"Well, it's very…" and they said in tandem, "complicated," and they both snorted.

"We were kind of married…" Marie rolled her eyes. "Yeah I know… We supposedly got married for a cover, because he needed access to a church we couldn't easily get otherwise. We put in our report that we had it annulled, but we didn't. We meant our vows and we were monogamous after that, which was difficult. We couldn't live like husband and wife and could really only chance one or two nights a month."

"So, you are married?"

"We have a marriage license in the names of Nicolas Lemanissier and Corrine Deschamp, which legally isn't worth the paper it's printed on, but spiritually I consider myself married and," she swallowed hard, "if he never remembers me I will consider myself a widow."

Marie looked aghast, "this is just all so…" and they said together "complicated…" Marie asked her, "Would you like to see something?"

Nicky shrugged, "Sure."

Marie pulled out the leather ledger that she had grabbed from behind the counter and opened it to a marked page, "I can't show you all of this, but I thought I recognized you yesterday…" she turned the book around and Nicky saw that it wasn't a ledger but a leather bound sketch book. "I started getting him to write and draw the things he remembers or dreams about…" On one page were three drawings of Nicky. One drawing was of her screaming while swinging a sword which was drawn in a Japanamay fashion. Another was a profile of her looking in the scope of a sniper rifle. The last picture was what she knew was her passport photo.

"Wow, I never knew he was such a good artist…" Nicky seemed clearly broken up, she grabbed a wad of bills and tossed them on the table, "goodbye Marie… think about what I said. You'll never see me again. Thanks for dinner…"

"Wait, Nicky… Please, we haven't eaten yet." Nicky kissed her on both cheeks. "You can't get off the island at this hour anyway Nicky…"

"I have a plane. I wish you the best…" Nicky strode quickly out and true to her word, she stayed away and Marie never heard from her again…


	18. Chapter 18: The Love Boat

Chapter 18

Present Day

Mid Atlantic Ocean

"So, Marie actually agreed to that?" Bourne asked incredulously.

"Well, technically no. I got flustered and ran off before she actually answered, but she knew I was right and she never told you about me… us," she corrected.

"So, you had already had the baby when you met Marie and you were pregnant when I cornered you and Conklin in Paris?" She nodded. "But, you said that they kept you prisoner and interrogated you for three months after Paris?"

She swallowed hard, knowing where the conversation was going. "Look Jason, please don't let that bother you…"

"Don't let it bother me?!"

"Yes. All I wanted was for the pregnancy to go fine and it did. I didn't tell them I was pregnant for awhile and when I realized I was going to have an extended stay and that they would find out anyway, I told them. They laid off on the drugs and torture after that. When Danny Zorn found out I was pregnant and that they were still interrogating me he practically pulled his gun on them until they took him to me. I was showing by then and he completely lost his shit and told them to let me out or he would shoot them all. He made a call, I guess to Abbott and they let me go. They assumed he was the father and he went with it. It's a good thing Conklin was dead, he would've gutted them," Jason snorted. "You liked Conklin, he was old school. He had four daughters; I think he always thought of me as a fifth. No way would he have stood for that BS. Zorn made them give me a year off with pay and benefits since basically I had been 'working' around the clock for three months."

"Why would Zorn do that?"

She glared at him incredulously, "Because he knew you were the father and they would never let me go if they knew."

"Great, so they know where she is…"

"No, they cut me loose and for six months I spent the time crisscrossing the country making sure they weren't tracking me. They have no idea where I went, or that later on I saw Marie. Oh, Paz is coming back…" she warned him of the other agents return not because of their conversations around Marie, but due to Nicky's pregnancy.

Paz Carrasco slipped into the hot tub at the aft end of the cruise liner, the Queen Mary II, which was shielded from the cold breeze by the higher decks. Jason couldn't help but notice that Paz had quite the collection of scars himself, including what looked like a pretty serious acid burn on his ankle, looks like he was lucky to still have full use of his foot. "Ah," he breathed as he slipped back into the hot tub. "Now when I left I was still extolling the wonderful and ever so talented Ms. Parsons, for being the best logistics officer ever. I can't believe we are going from New York to Barcelona in fifteen days of glorious luxury!"

She laughed, "Yeah, we all win. The CIA would never think we would do something so slow, we all get to rest and relax in five star accommodations, I get to use the spa and room service, and the whole while we are traveling to the motherland," she nodded to Paz who was Croatian, "to hunt Jason's white whale. Oh thank you…" she took the Tequila Sunrise from the deck steward as he gave the other men their drinks. She took the orange slice and ate the center out as Bourne showed his Ship Card to be billed for the drinks.

"I thought you were both into this?" Bourne asked cautiously.

Paz shrugged, "I don't have anything to lose, both of you do. If you change your minds, that's fine by me. I just want a piece of the action."

Nicky saw Jason bristle at his words but he held his tongue. Paz raised his glass, "to scars!" They tapped glasses, "to scars!" they all said in unison.

Jason saw a scar under Paz forearm when he toasted, it was triangular with slightly rounded sides. "Is that one from a clothes iron?" Jason asked.

He could swear Paz blushed slightly, "Yeah, but that's domestic. An old lady friend thought I was cheating on her…but we ironed it out," he laughed as he got up to dry off abruptly, as if not wanting to trade scar stories.

Normal people wouldn't have thought anything about the way Nicky slowly slipped her drink with pursed lips, but Bourne wasn't a normal person. He waited until Paz walked away, to hit on the female coeds that had been ogling them all, they were bundled in hats scarves and jackets. "You did that…"

It sounded like a rhetorical question, "Jason, a lady never scars and tells… Well JB, I am going to leave you to the school girls that have been ogling you both for an hour. There are cucumber slices in the spa calling my name… hElP mE HeLp Me…" she mocked.

She climbed out of the hot tub, laughing and overextended her reach getting her towel; she slipped from the top of the hot tub and fell to the deck hard on her wounded side. Bourne raised up to go to her and saw her laying there, soaking wet on her side in agony with her eyes looking at him in panic and with a flash of light he was gone, yanked into the past.

He remembered staring into a swimming pool looking at a naked figure thrashing in a cage that was fully submerged; he saw a tiny hand break the surface as if desperately trying to use it as a snorkel, while at the same time begging for help. The hand stopped moving and fell below the surface. "Pull her up," he heard himself say.

The cage was lifted by a hoist and swung over until it was over a wrestling mat at which point someone activated the release and the small figure was dumped more than six feet in the air to the mat. Water was ejected from her lungs on impact and Nicky Parsons, then still Constance Lindbergh, turned and looked at him, soaking wet and face full of fear and agony. Jason knew with a jolt that this was the first time he had ever seen her.

"She still conscious, do it again…" he heard himself say. She was grabbed and shoved back into the cage as she feebly tried to fight going in the cage then her saw her coughing and sputtering as she tried to fill her lungs with air. "Keep doing it until she drowns…then resuscitate her. Then do it one more time," he said as the cage swung back over the water.

She screamed "please!" right before the cage hit the water.

Jason looked down and saw Nicky's blood on his hands, literally. "Jason it's me, Nicky. Are you back?" he blinked rapidly three times. "Don't say anything here, everyone is watching. We need to leave, now. Wash your hands in the water…" he did as she said, robotically and she did the same. She had torn her stitches and then held his hands with her bloody hands while he was having his flashback.

"Come on Bourne, move it…" she ordered. He toweled off in record military time and donned a robe and then helped her put her robe on. He was finally able to focus on his surroundings and saw fifteen people gawking at them. She pulled him down the deck until they were several partitions away then pulled him outside to a side rail that was exposed to the icy wind. "Quickly, before it fades, what did you see Bourne…"

He was amazed at seeing her mind switching gears from his girlfriend… err wife… to his psychologist, which was heralded by the use of Jason vs. Bourne. "I saw… the first time I saw you…" he couldn't help but notice his voice shaking.

"In the infirmary…?"

"No, not the first time we met, the first time I saw you. In the pool…"

"Pool…?" she genuinely sounded confused.

"Yes… in training. I was ordering you dunked in a pool, you were… in a cage…"

She took a step backward and tripped over a table leg and fell on her rear, "What?" her eyes narrowed and he realized he should have kept silent.

"You were looking right at me Nicky…" he said defensively.

"No," she said as she crawled backward slightly before getting up, ignoring his extended hand. "No, you were behind a one way mirror Jason… with a voice synthesizer. You were my test proctor? All of it… You did it all…" The look on her face was that of someone that had suffered the ultimate form of betrayal.

"You said that I did something horrible to you that I never forgave…"

"_That wasn't it! Jesus, Jason… Oh, my God…"_ she leaned over the railing and started emptying the contents of her stomach. She slid to her knees and she wailed, "mama, why?"

He walked over and put a hand gently on her back and she shrieked, _"Don't touch me!"_ She walked off rapidly; he saw her gate and knew not to follow her. Whenever she kicked her legs out higher, almost to the point of goose stepping, he knew better than to follow her although he didn't remember why. He remembered how betrayed he had felt when he thought she had tortured him, but now he realized the opposite was the case.

He went back to their cabin to dress and he lingered hoping she would come by to stitch her wounds or to dress for dinner, as she was in a robe and bathing suit, but she didn't come by. He dressed up for dinner and left way early, to walk the ship.

Neither of them showed at the table for dinner and Jason had to sit there and answer awkward questions from the other five people at their table. He excused himself before dessert; he never ate it anyway and started combing the ship for her. She had gone to the infirmary earlier that day to get stitched up, then shopping for clothes on the promenade, which she wore out of the store. After that she did go to the spa and got her hair and make-up done. After that he lost her.

He unsuccessfully raided Paz's room after hearing a woman giggling. He had lured not one but two of the students back to his room and actually invited Jason in as a wingman even though he appeared to be doing just fine on his own.

Jason made one more pass on the decks and saw the high school boy in a letterman jacket lying on the miniature golf course looking at the stars and turned to leave before realizing it was her. The jacket was accompanied by a Mets hat, baggy pants and black converses. He walked and stood over her head and looked up at the sky.

He didn't see her roll her eyes, but he swore that he could feel it as she scoffed, "You're a cancer Bourne."

"I thought I was a Leo."

"I thought you didn't believe in 'that crap'."

Still looking at the sky he muttered, "I don't, Marie did. She would read them all everyday trying to figure out which applied to me…"

He looked down at Nicky's upside down face, her eyes narrowed to slits, "Two pieces of advice Jason Allen Bourne, when you spend all day looking for your vengeful wife: One… bring flowers, chocolate, or something in a small box… in this case all three would be warranted. Two: _Don't_ let your lead-in pertain to nostalgic reminiscences of your _mistress_. Okay? I'm just sayin'…"

He sat next to her, "Well, I kind have the first part covered, but by accident." He held out two dinner mints he got from his coat pocket, she took them both hoping that he had intended one to be for himself. He held up a bottle of wine and handed it to her; it had been uncorked already. "… I was coming up here to be alone; I didn't think I'd find you."

"Andes mints and Merlot under the stars, just like our first date…" there was a hint of sarcasm there, but there was also something else. She took a tug and handed the bottle back.

"I bought you this before we left, but it wasn't supposed to be a get out of jail free card," he handed her a black velvet bag.

She took the bag and pulled out a delicate antique Rolex watch she wound it and set it then held it to her ear and examined it, "it's very beautiful Jason, very '50s chic. I love antiques and it is the perfect metaphor for our relationship…"

He raised an eyebrow, but she didn't elaborate.

"I do love the style, you made a good choice. Thank you, really."

She sat up and he sat next to her but facing the opposite side of the ship. There was a prolonged silence, neither of them wanting to make the first move, until she softly said, "You should have told me…"

"I know. I figured I did, if I knew…"

She cut in, "… you still wouldn't have told me. Would you? If you knew today that you never told me about it, you would have made up some bullshit lie saying you had a flashback about hooking up with a Portuguese waitress or something…"

He thought about it and nodded his head, his voice broke, "No, I guess I wouldn't have. I honestly don't know. I've hurt you enough; it would just be me doing it again…"

"Well, it explains a lot. That's why you were a complete asshole to me for a year," he looked confused. "You were trying to hate me so you could live with yourself…" There was a prolonged silence again and again he let it play out. "I propose a truce. We are trapped here for another week, let's enjoy it and each other and get to be a real couple for a week. I really wanted to have a wonderful time."

"…okay?" he said knowing there was more.

"Then I'll help you kill your whale and after that," she took a huge gulp of wine, "I never want to see you again…"

He sat in silence for a moment, "I thought a truce was something negotiated and had to be agreed to?"

"If you don't want to be cordial for a week, I'll get other quarters and confine myself there or to the spa for the rest of the voyage, then I will help you kill the whale, and then leave quietly."

He frowned, "Nicky…"

"It's nonnegotiable."

"What about the baby?"

She said a bit too quickly, "That's a nonfactor. Both of us will agree to not make any kind of contact with the family. I found a nice, safe, wonderful family that will remain forever anonymous."

"What's her name?"

"No, I won't give you any information to go on Jason."

"Can I see a picture?"

"If I had any… It's not safe for me to carry any. I delete them when I get them, I can't bring myself to even open them," she said it with such a profound sadness that his heart wrenched. There was another long silence. "Jason, you are responsible for the four worst things that have ever happened to me." She put a hand on his shoulder, "Please, give me one week as a happy newlywed and then let me go…"

He looked at her and slowly nodded, "Okay. If that's what you want…"

"It is…" she leaned over and kissed him as if to seal the deal."You're temporarily forgiven. Come on Jason; let's go have some fun…"

They decided to sneak around the ship with the bottle of wine, taking pulls until it was gone. She had relentless fun at his expense with her 'teenage boy costume', saying things like, "so explain this NAMBLA thing again," as they passed a group of people, or saying "you're the best dad ever!" before kissing him deeply, or the ever popular "but mom told me people shouldn't touch me there" and "stranger danger!" It was fun until they almost got in a fight with some drunken guys and she relented and changed clothes. She kept him in the casino until late and they were both pretty good at blackjack, but horrible at poker. She enjoyed cigars, but really didn't smoke them much; she loved the smell because they reminded her of her childhood home.

Before the cruise they had only slept in the same bed a handful of times in ten years and both now had since developed night terrors. That night in particular Jason's eyes snapped open and he realized Nicky was talking in her sleep, "I swear, please I swear… it's not in your file, Jason please, oh God, no…"

He swallowed hard as if taking his medicine and gently rubbed her back, "I believe you Nicky, shhh. It's okay now. I believe you…" She calmed down and rolled over, content. Some nights, if she couldn't sleep she would lay on the bathroom floor naked. Her body shut down instantly whenever she did, a byproduct of months of naked sleep deprivation and sleeping on cold floors.

The days were glorious though. What followed was one of the best weeks of their lives, for both of them. Simple things that had always been forbidden to them like holding hands and falling asleep together were joyous.

When the Queen Mary 2 docked in Southampton, England most passengers flooded the gates after so many days at sea, desperate for dry land. Meanwhile, the three of them broke into their neighbor's cabin. Jason stood at the door looking out the peep hole, waiting to see if someone was going to hit their room. Nicky and Paz were recording and photographing the port, looking for signs of a hit team. They had set up make shift hunting blind using the curtain in as inconspicuously as possible.

After several long minutes Nicky said louder than intended, "Oh, crap…" but didn't elaborate, just kept looking through the long camera lens. Both men stared at her back as she pulled out her cell phone and slowly dialed while looking through the lens. After she stopped keying in numbers she said, "Stop looking for people hiding Paz. Second story railing in yellow..." Jason stormed over at this point, Nicky handed him the camera as Nicky hit the call button and put it on speaker phone. Jason saw the woman in the yellow sun dress facing into the wind and saw her Asian features, but there as something else there… Spanish? Italian? He knew it was Reina Tanaka, but she looked very different than he recalled, but her full lips and beauty mark were unmistakable.


	19. Chapter 19: No Place Like Home

Chapter 19

Nixa, Missouri

Abigail Webb sat sewing a quilt just inside of her front door, seated in front of a bay window that overlooked her large wraparound porch. Now she wasn't that old in her early fifties and it wasn't the kind of quilt you're thinking of, it was made from old worn out t-shirts and she was sewing it for her youngest child to go to college. She had never used a sewing machine before but was determined to make something 'cool' for her daughters going away present. She looked at the pile of old shirts looking for the next one to add to the square pattern: the Rolling Stones? No… Metallica? Not yet… The Ramones! She used the stencil to cut out a square of cloth and started sewing it next to the shirt that proclaimed 'I'm Huge in Japan'.

She heard a gasp and a thump from outside and looked up to see a woman collapsed on her porch. Abigail got up and said sternly, "we aren't selling anything…"

"Pardon…?" came a woman's voice.

Abigail got to the screen door and saw the woman, or rather the girl struggling to her feet, she was on her knees and very pregnant. She had a deep voice but was quite young; she couldn't have been much older than twenty. "Jesus!" Abigail exclaimed rushing outside, "Are you okay do you need a Doctor?"

It looked like she was grimacing in pain until she let out a "Pffft," sound and started laughing. "Only if I want a second opinion… but, I'm pretty sure there's something alive in there. I'm sorry, that was rude… No, I just feel foolish for being scared; I just got kicked for the first time. I just fell on my knees, it's just a scrape." She tipped a straw hat far back on her head; it was an expensive hat but looked battered. She was wearing a thin white cottony dress, it was a bit revealing, but it was the height of summer and sweltering.

"Here let me help you up. My word, you must be pregnant with Gandhi's reincarnation if that was the first kick you felt, you look full term…" she said with a motherly tone and deep southern accent. She helped her over to a pair of rocking chairs, "Here, sit down and let my get you something, tea?" Nicky looked her over and she wasn't exactly what she expected, she must have been Nicky's age or younger when she had the twins as she was barely over fifty. Nicky expected a tall, thin, terse, Liberian type. She was actually really short, she couldn't have been five feet tall and she was curvy but not overly so and very inviting; she almost looked 'comfy' if a person could be called that.

"Oh, no… it's too hot."

"Iced tea child… Sweet as God intended…"

Nicky shook her head as if clearing cobwebs, "Oh, of course… That sounds wonderful."

She returned with a tray that she sat on a small table between them, "Sorry I snapped at you before, people assume because we have a farm that we have antiques to sell and since we're from the country that we don't know what they're worth…"

"Oh, it's okay. Sorry we had to meet that way. My name's Nicolette Parsons… Nicky… You must be Veronica?" Nicky politely lied.

She laughed and handed Nicky a cold towel that she used to wipe her forehead with. "You are a peach! No, Veronica is my daughter-in-law. I'm Abigail, Abigail Webb. Put that on your neck it will help…"

"Thanks," Nicky reached behind her to pull up the ponytail that was no longer there before placing the rag on her neck.

"Your hair was a causality I take it? I practically shaved my head the first time…"

Nicky laughed, "Yeah, definitely too hot for that." Nicky surveyed the horizon at the rolling farm, the huge house was on a hill and you could see for miles around. The different shades of colors of the different crop fields were remarkable. "God it's so beautiful here… so quiet. Now I understand…" she almost said 'him'.

"So, what brings you out this far…" there was a note of suspicion in her voice.

"…your son…"

"Oh, Michael?" and her eyes fell to Nicky's neck where she was absentmindedly fingering the necklace Jason had given her in lieu of a wedding ring, just as Nicky realized that she had forgotten to take it off. She leaned in and looked at it, "David…" she gasped. Nicky nodded sadly. "I knew he had to have had someone…"

"Yes ma'am… There's so much I need to tell you all…and so much I want to ask…" she said watching a SVU drive down the long drive way until it rolled to a stop beside the '70's VW camper van Nicky had toured the US in. "Michael?"

"Yes, and Veronica too," and she yelled the next part, "_unless he drove off and left her again_, he left her at the mall one time and got all the way home before he realized it…"

A familiar male voice groaned as he slammed the car door, "That was FIVE years ago. Am I ever going to live that down?"

All three women chorused, "NO!" and laughed. Abigail patted Nicky's knee, "See you're fitting in already!"

The two newcomers joined them; the women unfettered and the male burdened with parcels. Michael sat the bags on the porch and looked up, "So, who's this ma?" he asked with a slight southern drawl Nicky was unaccustomed. Nicky was dumb struck when she saw him. She of course knew they were twins and she had prepared herself for this, but she still felt the need to run to him. Tears streaked down her cheeks and she felt her mouth open and close several times but no sound came out. His eyes darted around, assessing the situation, "…David?"

Nicky nodded and made to stand up until he blurted, "No! Ma, grab her. I think she's going to faint…"

"You do look pale; sit all the way back dear…"

Nicky felt her head swimming and saw Veronica glare at her and then look at her husband's back and scoffed before taking half the bags and going into the house not bothering to keep the screen door from slamming. Michael took the compress from her neck, "let me go freshen this up…" and left abruptly, no doubt to smooth things over.

"I'm sorry Nicky, I should have warned you…"

She shook her head, "I knew he had a twin, it was still a shock…"

"Yeah, he's pretty used to it now. Sorry about Veronica. She grew up on the next farm over and she and David grew up together; they dated in high school and she always had a problem with David's dalliances, even before they were together."

"Oh…" Nicky smirked at her being kept 'in the family' which seemed weird to her, the thought of sleeping with your ex's brother.

Later that night, as Michael and Veronica prepared dinner, Jason's mom drew Nicky a cold bath. The central air had broken down a month ago and they were surviving on window units in the bedrooms and cross breeze. Their house was shockingly modern, both it scheme and décor. She had explained that they had used David's Life Insurance to fix the place up and upgrade the farm equipment. "I appreciate you putting me up for the night Mrs. Webb…"

"Then stop calling me that child. If you pass me your dress I'll wash it with the rest of your clothes."

"Oh, it's okay. I hand wash it, it was my mothers. She wore it when she was pregnant with me. I didn't get to wear her wedding dress so I…" Nicky made a face like she was sucking on a lemon and quickly pulled her robe shut knowing the door was going to be flung open, but to her surprise it wasn't.

"Wh-what did you say Nicole?" she asked from the cracked door.

"I didn't mean to say it like that; I don't want you to hate me… David and I eloped… It's not what I wanted, but you know how private he is."

"Are you decent child?"

"Not according to my evil step mother, but I'm dressed…"

She opened the door and rushed in and hugged her, "I'm so glad you're here! I lost a son but gain a daughter and another generation to boot!"

"Yeah, about that…"

"… oh child… I know what you must be going through, but that is my grandchild! Do you know the sex?"

Nicky shook her head, "I'm very old fashioned…"

"You take your bath! I'll go tell the others!" she darted from the room.

Nicky sarcastically muttered to herself, "No, please don't go…" She rolled her eyes, "Great, wonderful work Parson's. Some spy you are, you can't even keep your mouth shut around your mother in law." She stared at her bloated face in the mirror, "wonderful…" She took her bath anyway, the cold well water felt wonderful compared to the hundred plus degree weather outside. She wanted to take her time, mainly to avoid the awkward conversations to come but she knew they would be waiting on her to eat and didn't want to be rude. She dressed in a cotton flower printed overalls and a white t-shirt. The overalls were both cheap and tacky, but they were very soft and allowed for future expansion. She put on a little make up and combed her hair but left it wet, running a dryer on it seemed wasteful, it would dry soon enough.

When she left the bathroom she found Michael waiting on the steps, she was on the second floor. He stood up and extended his arm, "May I escort you to dinner?"

"You mean 'catch me if I tumble down the stairs?' Sure, but good luck with that, I may just roll right over you…"

"Oh, you're not that big…"

"Yeah, well you didn't see me before…" she laughed."I think I am eating for five… Another six weeks of this and I will look like that girl in the barn in that movie Slither."

"Well, we always over cook so we should be able to feed the five of you and we do have a massive barn…"

She laughed, and letting out a snort of laughter and almost missed a step as he grabbed her forearm in an assertive Jason like way, ready to protect her... He walked her to the table, "I can tell already I'll need to keep my sarcastic wits about me around here…"

"Yeah, I would…"

They were half way through 'brinner': breakfast for dinner, when Nicky had run out of ways to dodge questions without lying to them. Avery, Jason's youngest sibling had joined them. She was getting ready to go to college and once she found out that Nicky was a world traveler had happily kept Nicky busy with fluffy questions about different places that she had been and things she had done.

Avery looked every bit like the Kansas farm girl with her families blue eyes and straight blond hair that was no doubt natural. She had an apple shaped body with strong shoulders and to put it politely, was top heavy. She was wide eyed and energetic almost to the point of bouncing off the walls. Nicky was startled by the realization that they were just a few years apart in age.

Avery, having apparently exhausted her normal polite dinner questions suddenly blurted, "Is David really dead now, because we know he was really alive…"

"AVERY!" Abigail shouted, "I told you to shut your mouth and not bring up that nonsense!"

Michael glanced up at them all and looked back down to his plate.

Nicky looked at them all keeping any emotion from showing on her face, "What are you talking about Avery?"

Avery tore herself from the table and ran into the den. Michael looked up at Nicky skeptically, "what is it Michael?"

"Do you like Pink Floyd?"

Nicky clearly looked miffed, "I'm not really sure… Why?"

Veronica said as she grabbed his arm, "Michael, we talked about this, it's not healthy… We are going to have to get you help…," he shook her off and stood up.

He walked to the hall closet and came back with a box, "Here is a copy of the Wall in English, oh and Spanish, and German, Swedish…" he handed Nicky a stack of CDs. "About nine months after David died I got a copy in the mail addressed to me. I didn't think anything of it, I have always belonged to music clubs; I thought it was a mistake or a promo or something until two months later I got another one. Then a month later another and after that I got a copy every week… for years…" Avery returned with a laptop she powered on. "… I have like three hundred copies in seventeen languages. I got a copy a week for years, and then six months ago they stopped…"

"Okay…" Nicky was clearly confused. "What does this have to do with David?"

He was silent for a moment and then spoke with a half clenched jaw and Jason often did, "When we were fourteen I bought this CD and he borrowed it without asking and scratched it so bad it wouldn't play. I hadn't even listened to it yet. So, every year when he asked what I wanted for Christmas or our Birthday I said Pink Floyd, but he never replaced it…"

Nicky couldn't keep from laughing slightly imagining the boyish look Jason must have had on his face as he placed the order every week. His mother seized on her laughter, "See you're both being foolish, stop before she thinks we are a bunch of crazies!"

Avery spun her computer around and her mother finally lost it, "Avery put that away or you're grounded!" to which Avery glared at her defiantly.

Avery pointed at iTunes, "You see that?" she pointed to a playlist on the side.

"Avery's Running Mix, yeah and…?"

Michael scoffed, "The last time Avery ran zombies were chasing her…"

Avery ignored him, "Click on it… Notice anything odd…"

"Tupac and Tori Amos kind of clash…"

Read the song names, just the song names… like a sentence."

Nicky read it as Avery asked and her mouth fell open…

Little Sister

Here I Am

Silent All These Years

Disappearing

Lie In Our Graves

Pretend that we're dead

Call it Pretending,

I want to live.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Me against the World

Secret Mission

Me and a Gun

Until the End of Time

I Spy.

You don't Have to Worry

I'll be seeing you

One day.

I will Always Love You

An inadvertent tear rolled down Nicky's face, "Why didn't I think of this… I own stock in it Apple for Christ's sake. Momma…"

"Yes Nicky dear?"

Nicky shook her head and sniffled, "Avery can you go to my room and get my green backpack please?"

Sensing a revelation and not wanting to miss it she ran to the downstairs bedroom that they had made up for Nicky. "AVERY MICHELLE! _There are no zombies in this house!"_ her mother called after her.

She came back with the green back pack, which was Nicky's essentials pouch. That bag was more important than all the others, it had her gun, passports, ID's, money, credit cards, and CIA credentials. "Now it is very important that you do NOT say these names out loud, ever. Do you all understand?" They all nodded. Nicky took her badge out and placed it unopened in front of her. She spun the lap top around and Googled 'Charles Lindbergh' then looked for a result with 'Constance Lindbergh' in it. She found a news article from the NY Times and spun it around, "read the article, once you're done maximize the screen."

Abigail was the last one done, her reading glasses were upstairs. "So, child… I remember this…"

"Expand it and look at the picture…"

Avery gasped, "_That's you_!"

Nicky opened her Constance passport and passed it over, "that was my old life…" She opened the badge and passed it over, "This is my new one…"

Avery gasped again, "O-M-G! You're with the CIA? That's so bitching!" Her mother was too stunned to chastise her.

"Here are others…" She slid a dozen fake passports over from six countries over and they passed them around.

"My name is Nicolette Parson's now, I work for the CIA. So, did David…" She passed over fake ID's she had for him too as well as the police fliers she herself had made for the Parisian police of him and Marie, and his CIA badge she found at his apartment in Paris.

Abigail was looking at her not at the table, "he _did_?"

"Oh, he is alive… Last I heard anyway, six months ago. He went on an op… operation and something went horribly wrong. He didn't come back, didn't check in, and didn't complete his mission. Weeks went by… he didn't contact me either. Next thing we hear, he is on the run with this woman… _don't_ say her name," she motioned to the flier. Abigail could hear the pain in her voice and knew there were two reasons she didn't want to hear that tarts name.

"He was doing erratic things, things that didn't make sense. I had to order people to kill him." Everyone gawked at her, "If I refused they would've reassigned me and gotten someone else to do it and I would never know what happened to him."

His mother slowly nodded, "Thank you." Nicky goggled at her. "I know it was difficult, but you're right. We would never know…" she trailed off.

"He came full circle back to the office where we operated out of, while I was cleansing to place… moving it. It was the middle of the night and only the Section Chief and I were there. David broke in to interrogate him and was asking him questions David already knew. Then he said he quit, pistol whipped him and turn the gun on me. God, it felt like he was pointing it at me for a million years. I couldn't say anything; I just stood there rubbernecking… I knew he didn't remember me then. He didn't remember any of it. He has amnesia I think. So, he left and is in hiding somewhere…" she didn't say _with_ _her_ but the other three women knew it was there.

"…and your parents dear," Abigail asked.

"Oh, they didn't know either. They both passed on a few years ago."

"I am sorry to hear that dear. Do you have any other family at all Nicky?" she asked which puzzled Nicky slightly.

"A million illegitimate cousins, Grandpa got around. I have a little sister, but she's… not well… she was… committed, after my mother… died."

"I'm sorry Nicole…"

"Nicky please, or Nicolette… or Constance or Connie…or Corrine, or Isabella… Belle if you must," she said snappishly as she tossed some more passports on the table, "or any of those. But, please don't give me anymore… my name is_ not_ Nicole. I don't even know who I am anymore." She started to bite her fingernail in frustration and then let her hand fall away, it was 'bad form' to bite ones nails, she rolled her eyes at her own internal dialogue.

Jason's mother stared at her and suddenly, the twenty-something year old girl looked very old, as if all the life had been drained from her. "I-I'm sorry… I didn't…"

Before she could finish Avery was on her feet hugging her, "you're our family now… you can be whoever you want and do whatever you want…just no running in the house," she said patting her stomach then letting her hand linger having felt a tiny kick, "so…"

Abigail snapped, "Avery Michelle you will not finish that sentence!" having been pulled from her torpor.

"It's okay Abigail, David asked too…"

"He did not!" his mother scoffed.

Nicky laughed and nodded, technically he hadn't asked if it was his but he had blurted out for her to 'get rid of it', it seemed the lesser of two evils since they were Catholics, "He did, and it is…"

"Now I'm positive she knows him…" Michael laughed and stood to hug her once Avery was pried away.

The terse Veronica snapped, "Michael, get your ass out to her van and steal her distributor cap." They all glared at her. "We can't have her running out on us until we see a baby…" they all laughed."I'm not kidding, now Michael…" Veronica is more like what Nicky had expected Jason's mother to be like, tall, skinny, black hair and long thin nose.

He got up to leave, "No!" Nicky protested. "You can't do that…"

"Nicolette, you do seem the flighty type…" his mother said gently."That's why you came here now; you were going someplace safe to nest."

"No, I wasn't." She hobbled up, "Mike! Stop, wait a second…please…" he turned and raised an eyebrow. "What if I swear on the Bible?" He sized her up, "No…" She thought desperately, "here!" She took of Jason's necklace, "Here, it's the only thing I have that he gave me… He gave it to me as a wedding ring. I won't leave it behind…"

He thought about it as she held it outstretched, "well here, let's switch… You can hold St Jude…" She raised an eyebrow this time, "Patron Saint of lost causes, yeah Ma's a riot."

Nicky did stay and promptly had the house equipped with central heat and air. She had it done the next Wednesday when Abigail was at brunch and Veronica and Mike were at work. Avery didn't put up much of a struggle in 120 degree heat.

Nicky was use to busy places but being alone. She had always lived in Paris or New York, or some other huge city, but always lived alone and had no friends. Here it was the other way around. There was nowhere to go but people were always around, underfoot. Abigail had Bridge night, Avery was very popular and always had friends or a boyfriend around, Veronica was a member of a hundred social clubs and sometimes had meetings there and she was _always on the phone._ Saturday night was poker night, men played Hold'em and the women gossiped, which was awkward since Nicky was the newest talking point but was in the room with them. Luckily Abigail had given Nicky her wedding band to wear. In Nicky's world single mothers were the norm and they kind of were here, but it helped to deescalate the focus of the gossip around Nicky.

Several weeks went by and Nicky realized that she had indeed come here to 'nest'. She felt safe and isolated here. She loved sitting in the bay window and looking out at the farm, she could see for miles. The asset in her was always looking for hiding spots, vantage points, corn moving in odd directions, had the scarecrow been replace by an asset, she laughed at that thought. It would be a great place for a cam though.

Two weeks into her stay, Nicky was enjoying brinner once again, it was at her request tonight, and had just poured sausage gravy over her second homemade biscuit when the power suddenly went out plunging them into darkness. Within four seconds Nicky accelerated the action on her Sig Sauer P226 that was carrying it the right front pocket of her overalls. At the noise everyone but Avery seemed to be scared silent.

"Stupid fuse…" Avery muttered and started to get up.

"Sit, stay there," Nicky commanded. "I may have endangered you all… Michael, where are all the guns kept?" Nicky got up and picked up the wall phone behind her, it was dead.

"The study, down that hall… Why?"

"Go and get a rifle: one that uses a clip if you have it, a pump action shotgun, and a pistol and bring them back here… quickly. Avery I need two mirrors, the size of a hand mirror or up to a foot square and two pairs of thick socks, go now… Abigail, get on your cell and call your neighbors and ask if they lost power and phones, from your closest neighbor first then move closer to Nixa. Veronica you go and check the fuse box and to make sure it's fine then flip the main breaker _off_. Everyone, if there are flashlights along the way grab them, but do NOT turn them on." Everyone looked at each other except for Michael who was already leaving. "NOW!" she barked and they got action, "…and stay away from the windows."

Avery was the first to return less than a minute later with one mirror then left to get another. Nicky cautiously approached the back door and leaned behind cover and used the mirror to not only look at the fields behind the house, but also to try to trick an over eager assassin to shoot at the reflection of her face, it was still dark in the house so it might work on a stooge but it would never fool an asset.

Abigail whispered from the pantry, "Everyone towards town has power, to the west no power or home phones. What's this about Nicolette?"

Nicky smiled, using her full name was covered intro to Hostage Negotiations 101 because it is a show of respect without groveling. "I can't explain now…" Michael and Veronica came back and Nicky told them to take the hand gun and lock themselves in the cellar, "its okay to turn a lantern on, just don't make any noise."

She showed Michael how she wanted him to hold the mirror to watch the rear of the house. "You see anything or you hear anything don't move and for Christ's sake don't call out, throw this through the door and I'll do the same, then fall back to here. She handed him a balled up pair of socks. Please don't shoot anything unless it's on the porch." He held up the shotgun and a Winchester, she took the Winchester. "Is this the 6 or 7 round version?"

He cocked an eye brow, "the seven…"

She nodded to the back door and she moved to the front. They waited and waited and waited. Checking her watch, she had only been at her post for thirty minutes but it felt like an eternity. She felt the sweat pouring off of her in sheets, the seemingly permanent cramp in her back was getting as tight as a spring, and she was enduring the pounding of tiny hands and feet, spurred by the same adrenaline that was making her heart race. "Shhhh…its okay… Shhhh…" she muttered and realized that it was the first time she had acknowledged the intelligence of the life growing inside of her.

Nicky had always felt like there were two people inside of her body, metaphorically speaking. When she was little there was the little girl that never got to play with dolls and the prodigy that was force fed information at a rate that should constitute child abuse. Then there was the rebellious teen lashing out at the world and the star academic that was desperate to please. Then there was the Doctor trained to save life and the asset created to take it. Now she realized with a jolt that she was the handler that issued orders to end life and the soon-to -be mother in the process of bestowing it. 'The Doctor' in her was almost gone and was being replaced by the would-be mother. The _mother_… She had completely disconnected herself from even the thought of being a mother. 'The Doctor' had tried to save itself by using clinical terms when she thought about what was happening to her: zygote, fetus, sperm, egg, gestation, and even jokingly parasite, barnacle, and amoeba. She was going to be a mother, the mere thought use to be an insult and a sacrilege to the gifts she had been given. She muttered a line from her favorite movie The Crow, "Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children…"

She looked up from staring at her twitching stomach to the mirror and saw a couple of the ears of corn moving. She muttered, "Oh, fuck…" her worst fears being realized."Please God, I know I never pray to you and I have denied you. Please, all I ask is to live long enough to give birth… Please…" she saw in the moonlight the unmistakable shape of a human form coming though the corn field. She flipped up the iron sight and slid the range adjustor to fifty yards. She turned and threw the sock and he came to the doorway and Michael joined her a minute later. She motioned for him to stand in her room but watch toward the kitchen.

She saw the form get closer and could see a broad brimmed hat and a flash of metal. Her finger tightened down on the trigger and she could make out a police uniform, which did nothing to put her mind at ease. She waited for him to get closer to the edge of the clearing and he suddenly stopped in his tracks, everything was eerily quiet, "HELLO!" he called. "I'M WITH THE SHERRIFF'S OFFICE!"

Aiming through the screen door she weighed her options, not a lot of good ones to choose from. She said in her best country drawl, "… don't know you Mister. You move for that gun and I'll put you down… Come closer so I can see you, slowly."

He slowly walked forward and at a snail's pace removed his hat with his gun hand, "See I'm one of the good guys…" He was an African American male in his mid to late thirties.  
>"You have a flashlight on you?"<p>

"Yes ma'am…"

"Point it at your shoes…"

"I'm sorry…"

"NOW!"

Michael hissed, "What the hell are you doing?"

He shined his light on his shoes and she added, "Lift your pants leg, show me your socks…"

He looked confused but complied he looked down at his own feet and looked at his paratrooper jump boots and Army socks and muttered, "Oh fu-," as her bullet hit him at the base of the neck breaking his spine and flinging his head sideways. The blood from his severed artery sprayed upward as he fell in a heap, his mouth still moving.

Michael screamed incredulously, "You shot at a cop?"

"Shhh!" she motioned for silence as she worked the lever action chambering another round. People outside opened fire, which told her they weren't assets. Assets would never give themselves away like that, that's means there was hope. She heard a high powered rifle, a shotgun, and at least two smaller caliber weapons. At least four targets at the front, but chances are on a trip this remote there were five more at least, three men per car plus gear. The rifle, probably scoped, was her biggest threat at the moment. He could sit out in those fields forever, waiting them out.

She thought earlier that she saw something move next to a tractor she whipped into the doorway, where the screen had been blown apart and fired a round where she thought the person had been, it went a foot wide and hit the huge rear wheel of the tractor which started to deflate. She ducked back but not before she saw someone move where she had intended to shoot. She stuck her foot out and kicked the door closed and locked it. She leveraged another round and retreated to where Michael was kneeling in the hall by the kitchen.

"Here…" he handed her a box of shells. She dumped them into her left pocket and reloaded two rounds.

"Michael, go to the back door. Don't stand in front of it but lock it. Fire two rounds though a window. Get the girls and make them get guns and ammo and go upstairs. Sooner or later they will try to burn us out… don't want them in a basement… get them in the bathroom. Tell them fill the tub and sinks with water up to overflowing and to soak every piece of cloth they can find… towels and blankets."

He nodded; "Mike is fine when people are shooting at us…" he muttered and was gone before she could respond.

He returned ninety seconds later, "done, ma said the cell phones are out of service now…" She looked at him then to the stairs that no one had gone up and he explained, "We have butler's stairs off the kitchen…"

"They must have blown the cell towers after I killed the so called Sheriff, or they are jamming us." She felt a jarring kick against her constantly full bladder, "Shhh… stop it…" she rubbed her stomach.

"You killed him?!" he blurted.

"He killed himself when he didn't change his shoes, men never accessorize properly... Listen to me Mike; these people are here to kill David. They probably think you're him. They will kill everyone in here without a second thought. If you get a shot on one of them, take it. Agghhh…" she grimaced.

"Great, you're in labor…"

"No, I'm too early… I'm thirty weeks…" but she checked her watch anyway in order to time possible contractions.

"The hell you are, you got your dates wrong lady… You need to get upstairs before you can't… Come on." He grabbed her arm in such a Jason like way that she couldn't say no, he took her back towards the kitchen and up the narrow butler's stairs. It was slow going, but it didn't sound like anyone was rushing into the house.

He got Nicky upstairs and she grabbed Avery by the shirt, "I need my green backpack and the blue medical bag in the fridge. Hurry…"

Avery reached down and handed her the backpack from beside the bed, "I knew you needed it… Be right back."

Avery and Michael tore downstairs and as Avery dug through the refrigerator, looking for the little blue nylon lunch bag thing Nicky said had her insulin in, the front door exploded at the hinges and the lock plate then fell inward. Mike stole a glance around the corner and he could hear the men coming though the shattered remains of the door. He leaned out to fire, but one of the men was quicker and a rain of SMG fire sprayed the hall Mike dove back into the Kitchen and leaned out from the other doorway which looked directly into the living room and passed it to the front door. He fired left handed and around the corner, off the shoulder and the shotgun almost kicked out of his hand, he missed but it hit the frame as another man was entering showering his face with splinters. He pumped the action and fired again; hitting him in the chest and knocking him back through the door. The man with the SMG raised it high, up the main stairs that Michael couldn't see up. Then man then inexplicably lowered his weapon and just as Michael fired a round into him, he was hit by several pistol rounds from the stairs.

Michael ran to the front and over turned a bookcase over, diagonally blocking the door and knocked over a coat rack in an attempt to create a make shift barricade. He turned to run to the kitchen and saw why the man had stopped, a very pregnant Nicky was at the top of the stairs looking every bit like a noncombatant. She was half doubled over clutching her stomach with one hand and leaning on the railing with the other. She was sweating profusely and looked a mess. The railing had blocked her side arm from his view initially.

"Go lay down!" he barked as there was a similar explosion as the back door. He heard Avery shriek and heard gun fire hitting something metal and glass was shattering. He sprinted halfway down the hall before he realized he had put the shotgun down to knock the bookcase over, he heard his baby sister shrilling scream again and he surged forward, building momentum. He powered around the corner to see one man in tactical gear reloading and another, a woman, firing across the room. She pivoted to shoot down the charging Michael as her gun clicked down on an empty chamber; she dropped the gun and tried to go for a knife.

Jason had played tight-end in high school and was really quite good and could have probably gone pro, well Michael had been pretty damn good himself. He didn't play offense; he liked punishing his brother and grew up playing linebacker. In perfect form he hit her low and lifted her up and drove her back and kept pumping his legs, when he got near the wall he exerted all of his hate, frustration, and rage as he extended his arms up and out, hurling her backward through a large widow that overlooked the porch.

He whirled on the man and charged him, knocking the MP-5 SMG out of his hand and it clattered across the tiles. This agent went for his knife too, but not before Mike popped him in the ski mask with three quick jabs. Jason and Mike had learned to box as teenagers down at the Veterans League which had the closest boxing ring. Some of the old timers taught them and they leaned to fight first the 'ole timer' way with their arms up and forearms out as a shield. Mike still loved to fight that way and fell back to that now, fully prepared to use his forearms to keep the knife away from his body.

Avery had been digging through the fridge when the backdoor blew open and the two charged in and opened fire on her. Out of instinct she flung the door open and used it as a shield, the bullets cascading across the stainless steel, some penetrated and shattered jars of preserves, pickles, olives and ketchup. She screamed shrilly and ducked lower, then slid over to the kitchen island. She heard the gun fire stop, then a crash and look over to see her brother hurling the woman out the back window. He turned and was fighting a man fully armored that had a knife.

She looked around for a weapon to help him and saw one just as she saw the woman scrambled to her feet outside the window and struggled to draw and cock a pistol. For maybe the first time, an American was thankful for the September 11th terror attacks, as Avery remembered the flight attendants on doomed flight 93. She gave silent thanks to those brave people as she grabbed the full pot of coffee, something she wouldn't have thought of on her own, and ran at the woman. Avery swung it sideways like a tennis racket and hit the woman in the face. It took the women's brain a moment to register that the liquid was hot and she dropped the gun through the window and grabbed at her face, screaming.

Avery looked at the coffee pot handle, "I am sure glad Nicky voted for Brinner…" Avery never heard the rifle shot, nor did she see the mussel flash from the second story of the barn where a board had been hammered down. She felt it hit her back and it spun her completely around and she was about to stagger three steps towards the back stairs, still feebly clutching Nicky's medical bag before she fell.

The two men had rounded on each other so Michael was facing the window and his masked assailant had his back to the door. Mike saw Avery spin like a top and his opponent capitalized and lunged and Mike blocked with his forearm and he saw the point of the dagger sticking out of his arm, having gone in-between the two bones and out the other side. He thought about the complete and total absurdity of this whole situation and laughed. His 'dead' assassin of a twin's fake pregnant 'wife', who was a spy, was here and a SWAT team had come to kill them all.

His laugh sounded scary to even him, so much so the man let go of the knife in shock. Suddenly Mike realized that he knew he wasn't 'Jason Bourne' but they didn't know that. He looked the man in the eyes and tried to sound as crazy as possible, "We both appear to have casualties, women at that." He squinted his cold blue eyes, "Perhaps we should both take our wounded and fall back to regroup… plan A apparently failed…" he could see the man's eyes start to show flashes of panic at being six inches away from one of the most deadly men on the planet. "…or I can pull this knife out and return it to you."

The man in the ninja mask nodded and slowly backed out with his hands in a combat pose until he was out the door and he threw the girl's arm over his shoulder and guided her around the porch.

Michael forced himself to collect the two SMGs and slung them before going to Avery. To her credit she had crawled about ten feet using her left arm while still clutching the medical bag, her right was holding her chest. "Mom and V come down here! I need help!"

They joined him a minute later and were suitably in a panic, "look just get her to Nicky, she will know what to do…"

"Where are you going?" his mother demanded.

"Avery, worry about Avery. I'll be up in a second." The two women drug her up the stairs as he returned to the body in the front room. He stripped the man Nicky shot at the front door and saw that he appeared to still be alive. With one hand, having left the knife in the other arm, he gathered the gear and took everything but the boots and underwear and went upstairs.

He entered the bed room and saw Nicky desperately trying to stabilize Avery; she had an IV hanging on a metal coat hanger and was inserting a tampon into Avery's wound and taping a sanitary napkin to it with athletic tape. Mike strapped the walkie talkie to his waist and strapped the throat mike collar around his neck. "Nicky…" she didn't respond."_Nicky_! How does this mic work? _NICKY_!"

"_WHAT_! _Jesus_!" she was staring at the knife in his arm.

"How does this thing work? How do I talk?"

"Oh, you press this thing on your neck collar when you want to talk. Can you hear them?" she asked, as she tenderly held his wrist with one hand and yanked the knife out without warning.

For a second it looked like he was going to punch her in defense, "_Fuck_!" he screamed. "Yes, I can hear them…" he spit."A little warning next time huh?"

"Let me be the Doctor here. Veronica please come here, hold these in place…" she put sanitary napkins on each side of his wound and taped it as tightly as humanly possible.

He asked, "What do they call themselves… as a group? Like a platoon?"

"Team and the head is the team leader, that's the norm…" she saw where he was going.

"Are they here legally? Like with search warrants and stuff?"

She shook her head vehemently, "It's illegal for the CIA to carry badges or guns on US Soil…" she grimaced again and checked her watch, "well mostly. It got kind of fuzzy after 9/11." She glared at her stomach, "God, when I asked to live to give birth, I didn't mean right now…"

"How many would they send?"

She cocked her head, "It's according to if they rushed in or if they had a lot of time. We would have to know when they found out and how, because I damn sure know they didn't follow me."

"Oh, God…" Abigail muttered.

Nicky whipped her head around, "What? What did you do and when?"

She staring at Avery and shaking like a leaf, "I Googled that Marie woman, I didn't find anything though…"

"Well that would do it," Nicky couldn't help but roll her eyes. "You wouldn't find anything on her; she was a gypsy before… When did you do it Abigail?" she sounded remarkably like a mother scolding her child.

"This morning…"

"Then I'd say nine to twelve agents… three per car. Half medium skill level… the other half rookies or old vets put out to pasture in Missouri," she was sweating and turning sheet white.

"What was in the bag? You wanted something from the bag… use it!"

"Shit," she muttered, having been distracted with Avery. She grabbed a sealed syringe and started to unwrap it, "Veronica, look for a bottle that says Progesterone…" she handed it to Nicky who shot it up."That might stop labor, I need one with a yellow cap it's an antibiotic and one with a purple cap it's a steroid to help the lungs develop faster…" she shot them both.

"Everyone be quiet…" Mike barked. Nicky looked up and Michael had dressed completely in their gear and looked like one of them minus the shoes and he had the mask rolled up. He pressed the mic button at his throat, [Team Leader?]

{Receiving…}

[Good! This is Jason Bourne…] Nicky's head jerked up and gawked at him. [I know the people in D.C. thought this was a good idea. We all know differently. You are _here_, on the _ground_. You came to the home my grandfather built with his own hands and assaulted it like it was a damn castle. There is a pregnant woman in here that is now in premature labor because of you. You have scared my elderly mother half to death and you shot my baby sister in the chest, she is in _High School_. As far as myself, I am very, _very pissed off_…"

He took a deep breath trying to sound menacing, "Here are the surrender terms I am willing to accept from _you_: You will come police up your dead and wounded and get the hell off this land within the next fifteen minutes, or I am going to come out there and _kill every last one of you_. You have thirty seconds to respond."

Michael shrugged at everyone's gawking, "You never know until you try." He watched the seconds tick by and at thirty-two seconds he responded, [I guess that's a no…] he picked up the two SMGs and started to leave.

"You can't really go out there!" Nicky protested.

"They are getting Jason Bourne one way or the other…" he spit acerbically, knowing if they killed him they would leave, or at least hoping they would.

His headset crackled in his ear, {I agree to your terms. We have clearance to get the wounded?}

[Yes, two men only. Unarmed and get the man near the front door first. He is alive but very critical. The local hospital is about to have a huge influx of midnight hunting accidents, our truce will cover there as well. I don't want these men to die for D.C.'s stupidity…]

{Understood… Emergency services are on their way. We were serving a Homeland Security warrant and got the wrong address.}

[Sure, whatever… Oh, and I will forgive this little blunder, _if my sister lives_. But if you _ever_ come here again or even so much as take satellite photos of this house, I will be paying you all visits to _your_ homes in the middle of the night, do you understand?]

{Yes, sir… We appreciate your understanding during this trying time…} he had to laugh at that.

Nicky cocked an eyebrow at the laugh, "He said 'We appreciate your understanding during this trying time…' Seriously guys… So my brother is really that much of a bad ass?"

"Yes, I told you… He is one of the top ten deadliest things on the planet; all the others are from Australia…" Avery's head lulled to the side, "Hey Avery… stay with me, look at me! Hey, you can't die on me… I'll start to lose my patients… Get it patients… it's a triage joke…"

Avery groaned, "_I get it, it just sucks_…"

Michael rolled the mask down and oversaw the extraction of the wounded and radioed one last demand as the Police and Paramedics arrived, [oh, and turn the power and phone back on. I get grumpy when I'm hot…]

Nicky warned, "Okay Rambo, drop it. You don't want to oversell it…"

Michael lost the ski mask and put Jason's badge on a lanyard around his neck. His biggest moment of trepidation was when he first stepped out of the house. Fifty or so people were around, some neighbors had heard the shots and had come running, others saw the police lights and wanted to watch and then there were the police, firemen and the CIA ops that they had just been fighting. Still, Nicky fully expected him to have his head blown off as soon as he stepped outside, but it the truce held.

Veronica drove Nicky's van and followed the ambulances to the hospital, where she worked, but she was an accountant that worked in administration. Abigail went with Avery and Michael with Nicky. Nicky tried to play twenty questions with the EMT, trying to vet his credentials as authentic until he suck a syringe into her arm and sedated her.

She gave a gasp and a "waz dat?" She felt the drug and locked eyes with Michael, "Please, you can't let them…" and her eyes fluttered shut.

Beep***Beep***Beep*** Beep***Beep***Beep***Beep***Beep*** Beep***Beep***Beep

Nicky's eyes fluttered open, "Aghhhh…" She saw the 'hospital teal' fabric suspended under her breasts, blocking her belly from view, which is often done in surgeries to block the patients view. "No…no… stop… no…" she tried to move her arms but they just floundered around useless.

"Nicolette, you're fine," Abigail soothed. "Here feel…" she put her hand on her stomach which was cold and goopy."It's just an ultra sound… Everything's fine. You missed the show though; the big secret is out…" She smiled gently, "Here have a sip…" she handed her some juice."Now I can paint the room, you can't make it up the stairs anyway so the surprise won't be ruined…"

"No need to paint," Nicky said groggily. "I'm going to go with adoption… I couldn't go through with an abortion, but I can't be a mother. You saw what happened; we will never have a normal life."

Abigail stood bolt upright and her face turned beat red, she glared at the nurse who wanted no part of this and finished cleaning the KY off her stomach and lowered her robe, then left with the machine. Nicky saw the blood vessel throbbing on her forehead and though she might have a stroke.

She made the cross in front of herself and Nicky saw the Rosary in her hand for the first time, "Lord forgive me Jesus…" Nicky braced herself for the hell storm that was coming knowing those words were a bigger warning sound to a Catholic than the cocking of a pistol. A five minute outpouring of fury over the mere word abortion, even though Nicky kept pointing out that she hadn't done it, made up the preamble. Then there was fifteen minutes of general cursing and 'help me Jesus's' followed by the longest tongue lashing of Nicky's life which went on so long Nicky covertly started looking for a clock to time it.

She finally started losing steam after an hour or so, "… you have got to be plum out of your ever loving mind if you think I am turning over my blood to an orphanage…"

"It's not an orphanage, I'm Mensa… People would pay millions for just an egg of mine. The couple I picked out is perfect; the husband is a neurosurgeon and his wife was an Olympic gold medalist and is a lawyer now. I could've picked any family I wanted…" then she made the mistake of laughing which precipitated another thirty minutes of screaming.

"'… I'm Mensa,'" Abigail mocked. "You have shit for brains if you think I'll stand for this…" there was a curt knock at the door.

Abigail strode over to it and spoke to someone for a minute and then shut the door again.

"Abigail, please…the chart on the door, get it so I can see what's really going on…What day is it? Avery? Michael?" Nicky said desperately trying to defuse things.

She handed her the chart, "It's been a day; they thought it best to let you rest. Avery was shot in the lung and is in ICU. _Jason_ is gone; he performed a miraculous disappearing act," she sighed. "Some of the nurses grew up with them and helped dress him like a Doctor in a mask and took him through the surgery area, where the others can't go. Then they smuggled him out with the dirty laundry. A man from the government is here to see you by the way. He just asked for his turn to scream at you..."

Nicky rolled her eyes, "Old fat man looks like a toad, a Doctor?"

"No, he's young, tall, wiry man. He has kind sad eyes, ears kind of stick out; I think he covets you. He's been here all day waiting for you to wake up, pacing in the hall."

She groaned, "Danny…"

"He wouldn't say."

She groaned, "Great he is going to give a guilt trip. I'd rather be in trouble…"

"Now be nice. He's been very kind. He even deposited the settlement money already."

"Huh?"

"I think quickly too dear. They told the press it was a huge mistake and a misunderstanding. I _asked_ if they were willing to settle out of court for the damages and pain and suffering, you know, to keep it out of the paper and CNN…"

Nicky laughed, "I would have loved to have seen his face. Good for you, great thinking. Better send him in and get this over with… Corrine Deschamp?" she asked looking at her chart.

"It was the first one I found that wasn't your other two. Did I do well?"

"Yeah, that's perfect."

Abigail left and Danny Zorn came in, "Hi Danny! God I am so glad to see you!" Nicky beamed falsely.

"I bet. I think the 'you'll burn in eternal hellfire you harlot' outstrips anything I had to say. I thought you were doing your 'residency'."

Nicky gestured to the room and her chart, "I am. I got tired, lots of time on my feet…"

"Uh huh… 'Bourne's' gone, if it was even him, he eyed her skeptically. I met Michael and entered his prints and location in the data base. No one knew his brother was a twin. They don't really look identical though…"

"No, not anymore," she said sadly. "The eyes are different and Jason never smiles anymore…"

"Well yeah, but I meant physically. Michael has less muscle and his nose is crooked."

"Oh, yeah there's that too."

"I don't want an unfortunate reoccurrence of this. I warned Mike if he flies anywhere or goes overseas to let us know first. I noted in the file that Bourne would never be stupid enough to come here again. Don't see any point of leaving people here, no-one's deserving of exile this week," he laughed.

"It's not that bad here…"

He cocked an eyebrow, "Where is Nicky 'show me the Prada' Parsons and what have you done with her? Speaking of which, during the debriefing I saw recon photos of you sitting on a window seat, no one else there knew you. No one else knows you were here."

"Okay, thanks Danny," she said warmly. "Got a pen?"

He handed her a pen and she made some notations on her chart, "I'm glad you're okay…" he said genuinely.

"Thanks for everything Danny. I owe you dinner," she handed the pen and chart back.

He read her added note to the bottom of the chart, "… Diet of red meat due to extreme iron and protein deficiency; not be served ground meat due to pregnancy? So, you're ordering a steak?" he laughed, she beamed and blinked innocently. "There's my Nicky… Enjoy the rest of your leave."

"Thanks again Danny," she offered again as he left.

She collapsed backward onto the bed and felt her stomach lurch, but with hunger this time and muttered, "I hope it's not too late for room service…"


	20. Chapter 20: Czech Mate

Chapter 20

Present Day

Southampton, England

Jason Bourne stood, looking through the lens at Reina Tanaka and was… surprised? He wasn't shocked by her appearance, or that she found them, but by her complete and total disregard for her own safety, exposing herself like that. She was standing on an open air, second story walk over, that was mostly and observation deck for those looking for loved ones. Most of the passengers had departed leave her nearly alone on the platform.

Reina was holding a pen lighting her hand, subtly against the railing, and was sending Morse code with it… her phone number. She smiled and waved at someone she didn't know as her phone rang.

Her Australian accent was fuller and more pronounced than ever before, " 'ello?"

"Love the dress! Bit out of season in the dead of winter though."

"It's summer down under, but thanks, it was on clearance. I wanted to make sure you saw me and understood that I wanted to be seen. Code in please dearest."

"Kiwis aren't always fruits…" Nicky said, a joke from their past.

"… and Orange Julius's aren't made with apples. Thank you Nic… is JB with you?"

Jason nodded his approval to Nicky, not wanting his voice print broadcast. "Yeah, are you up for a game of shuffle board?" Nicky replied.

"I would love to join you. A lot of the people we work with are retiring this week. I'm with K, JB's latest bromance. They offered us both a retirement package too, but we declined," she was referring to Kirill. Nicky covertly watched Jason for outward body language signs as to his thoughts on this; there was a slight tightening of the jaw, which could mean anything. "We have some toys for you. He is covering us from on high. What are you up to?"

"We were going to Newark to hunt a white whale." Jason raised an eyebrow at Newark but remain silent.

"Figures," she huffed."Well you all need to get out of there. If I made you, they will too. Everything looks clear to walk off, or if you don't trust me you can jump over the port side and swim for it… either way you're exposed."

Jason motioned for Nicky to hang up, "Okay, hold on a sec…" she muted the phone.

They heard Reina scoff, "Did that sow really just put me on hold? I can't believe this… Really…?" and she started humming the Jeopardy theme.

"Why should we trust either of them?" Jason asked.

Nicky offered, "I don't really know Kirill, but he wasn't known as a butcher like Castel. Reina I trust implicitly."

Paz cleared his throat, "I trust Reina fine. Kirill I did a couple of jobs with. He is okay, kind of quiet but not in an odd way. I did save his life once… kind of."

"We always work alone, that's what the Professor said…" Bourne said in a suspicious tone.

Nicky butted it, "You and Roy did. You were two of the best and preferred it that way. Others sometimes worked in pairs…"

Paz laughed, "His name was Roy? I never knew that…"

"Yeah, Roy Hinkley…"

Paz scoffed, "The Professors name was Roy Hinkley…"

"That's what I said…" Nicky snapped defensively.

"No, _the Professor_… on _Gilligan's Island_, his name was Roy Hinkley!"

Jason reared his head back in mild shock, "He didn't have a name…"

Paz laughed, "They only said it in the pilot on a radio broadcast. I never miss an episode of Jeopardy," he nodded to the phone where Reina's poor rendition on the Jeopardy theme was being piped in.

Nicky let out a snort and then laughed sadly, "Shit, I guess when they had him strapped into the electric chair that was the first name he thought of. God, he told a thousand secret jokes about that. I teased him about only liking me because I was blond and he said he had a thing for short brunettes and tall red heads. I wanted to go to Fiji and he said that he had spent enough time in the topics to last a lifetime… his rants about abhorring coconut… his favorite song was _Message in Bottle_ by the Police."

Paz laughed again until he saw Bourne glaring at him, then looked at Nicky. "Oh… I'm sorry Nicky."

Before she could say anything Reina's Jeopardy theme ran out, "Okay fine. Whatever… Good luck guys."

Paz hit the mute button, turning it off and said warmly, "Hey it's your favorite Czech Mate…"

Reina laughed and for once her voice wasn't full of ice but was warm and inviting, "Hey you… I was hoping you were laying low somewhere. I can see that's far from the case. I'm glad you're okay…" Jason saw Nicky's eyes narrow slightly, almost imperceptibly.

Paz laughed, "You know me; I love the action. We'll join you in a bit…"

Thirty minutes later the three disembarked and it was then that they were at their most vulnerable. They had to clear customs and had no weapons; if they had been acquired they were easy targets. Bourne whispered to Nicky, "They will take me out first, if anything happens, just get clear and don't look back…"

"You do love to flatter yourself dear… While you are apparently indestructible, I am a walking encyclopedia of dirty laundry. I knew all the missions. They will do me first…" he looked at her and knew she was right. He went back to scanning the crowd.

They cleared customs and as they walked through the terminal Reina and Kirill fell in behind them. Bourne caught a glimpse of the five of them walking together in a reflection and he realized the absolute hell storm they could bring. Five of the deadliest people on the planet were gathered for a joint cause and for the first time Jason felt like he belonged to something… larger.

They got on a bus leaving the port; the bus was packed to the gills. Jason was clutching Nicky's forearm, ready to drag her to the ground. He was aware that a teenage punk was ghosting Nicky as well, sneaking up to pick her pocket or snatch her purse. He felt her tighten her bicep as a signal to release her and as notice that she was aware of the miscreant. Reina, ever so helpful, spoke up from behind the punk, "wow, five MMA fighters on a cramped bus together, can you imagine if someone _actually_ tried to mug one of us?!" they all snickered and the punk looked around, unsure as to who laughed. He wisely got off at the next stop, but not before Reina stole his wallet and his watch. "Twelve Euros?" she baulked. "It makes me sorry I stole it… Fucking pathetic…"

They took the bus to the airport and Nicky chartered a plane to fly them to London where they were going to 'acquire' a plane to fly to Lisbon, only they weren't going to make it the whole way, they were going to bail out over their target and leave the plane on auto pilot, set to crash into the Atlantic.

On their plane ride to London, Bourne made Nicky sit in the window seat and in protest she closed the window blind as forcefully as possible, she then shoved the fifth piece of gum, within three minutes, into her mouth. She put on her seatbelt and tightened it as much as humanly possible and started muttering what sounded like the Lord's Prayer. He saw her rocking slightly and a thin sheen of sweat was beading on her forehead. The plane lurched into motion down the runway and she gripped her armrests tightly as she turned a slight shade of green.

He scoffed, "You're afraid of flying? You're a pilot!"

"Shhhh," she shushed angrily. "I'm not flying. I'm riding in a plane."

"You're afraid?" he hissed.

"I'm not afraid!" she snapped as the plane lurched off the tarmac.

With a flash and a lurch he was gone into the past… "I'm not afraid!" she snapped as the plane rocketed through the rain storm, sheeting the canopy of the fighter jet he was in the back of.

"You're voice is shaking!"

"I'm not afraid, now shut it! I have to radio control…"

["...Lindbergh Baby 101, Mig ball, 8.6]

{Roger ball. Baby you're at three quarters…}

She sighed, "There you are…" [I have you America].

Jason looked over her shoulder from the rear seat of the Mig and saw the aircraft carrier, the USS America, moving all over the place and felt his stomach lurch. It was above them then completely below the plane, then hard port, then starboard."JESUS CHRIST! Have you done this before?!"

"Yes. Please be quiet, I have to do a hundred things at once…" She heard him frantically shifting around and stole a glance over her shoulder, "Get your hand OFF of the ejection handle!"

"You're all over the place…"

"Well the carrier is moving up and down and moving to the right of where we land… It's not all me…"

"JESUS!"

She flipped a switch, [LSO please order Eagle Scout to _remove his hands from the ejection handle…_]

{Eagle, sit tight. Approach is solid. You'll be on the deck in a second…}

"That's kind of vague," he hissed.

The closer they got to the deck the more they flattened out, they slammed into the deck hard and he felt her punch it to full throttle and thought they missed the wires or something until their tail hook caught and they lurched forward against their restraints at a hundred and fifty miles an hour. "Fuck…" he grimaced.

"Sorry, you have to punch it in case you miss the wires or you'll dump over the side and the carrier will run you over... Speaking of dropping over the side of the carrier, do you see a little man in a canary yellow jumpsuit? I don't want to drive over the edge…"

Bourne's memory flashed forwarded and saw them below decks in the hanger getting out of the Mig and she was clutching the ladder doubled over quivering… "See I said you were afraid…"

"For the last time I'm not afraid… Now wasn't this a lot more fun than that flight out of Barcelona I could have booked you on…" she panted.

"What?! You mean this wasn't the only way?"

"I never said it was the only way, I said it was the fastest… I thought we could use some quality time together, besides I never get out of the Safe House."

"…and Conklin signed off on this?"

"Yes, kind of…"

He glared at her.

"Well, every week I email him a stack of requisition forms and he just tells me to sign them, he doesn't even look at them anymore…"

With a jolt he snapped back to the present, "Bourne is it over? It's Nicky Parsons. It's 2010; we are on our way to London…"

"Yeah, I remembered landing on a carrier. You're afraid to fly…" he stated with a dry voice. "I remember you getting out of the plane shaking so hard that you couldn't stand up straight…"

"I wasn't afraid on the carrier Jason…"

"You were quivering so hard you couldn't stand up!"

He heard Reina's snarky voice in his ear; she was sitting behind them, "she wasn't quivering in fear mate… Hasn't anyone ever taught you about the birds and the bees?"

Jason blurted louder than he had intended, "You got off on that?!" Several people turned and gawked. "Wait, are you turned on NOW?!" A college aged guy across the aisle locked eyes with her and threw her a 'nod' towards the toilet.

"Jesus Jason! Shut it!" Nicky blurted her face a sheet of crimson. "Okay, I _am_ afraid right now. I'm not afraid to fly if I'm the pilot. I just don't trust other people…" She glared at him, "I _seem_ to have developed deep _trust_ issues…"

The rest of the short flight was awkward but uneventful. Once in London they set about drawing up their plans and Nicky went to work on the logistics, locating parachutes, gear, weapons, and Intel. Kirill and Paz went to collect the weapons and other gear.

Reina told them that during the last week everyone that survived the programs was being eliminated. "Rothschild in a 'house fire', Franklin 'committed suicide' in his maximum security cell, Angus 'ODed', Malcolm and Floyd where shot in Central Park... Cross they tried for and missed. They tried for Kirill and I as well but we were ready for them… Those are just the ones I know about."

The names meant nothing to Jason, besides Malcolm and Floyd, but he saw Paz clench his fists and knew from Reina's voice that she had liked some of them. Nicky leaned over and kissed his forehead to which he raised an eyebrow. She explained, "If you had a friend at Treadstone that isn't on this plane or Conklin, it was Rothschild."

He stated sadly, "I don't remember him…."

"…her. Erin Rothschild." Nicky corrected without even a shred of jealousy. "You always said she reminded you of your sister… Franklin was a friend of mine…"

"Well, this ends, all of it. It all stops tonight…"

Later that evening after stealing a small private jet, which is remarkably difficult unless five of the most resourceful people on the planet were doing it, they flew off into the night bound for 'Lisbon'. Nicky's voice came across the PA is the classic 'this is your captain' sing-song voice, [Good evening and thank you for choosing Bourne Again Airlines, or Baa, the world's oldest provider of suicidal combat missions. Today we will be flying at 20,000 feet, at least unless something unfortunate occurs. In the likely event of antiaircraft fire your seat is equipped with body armor instead of a life jacket… so in the unlikely event of a water landing, you're screwed. On a Historical note, all pilots speak in this voice because they are impersonating Chuck Yeager's voice, even if they don't realize it…]

Paz spoke up in the rear of the plane, "Haha, she really put vests under the seats…"

[… Please direct your attention to the rear of the plane where parachutes are located for your convenience. Also, for those of you that may not be members of the Mile High Club, your Stewardess Ms Tanaka will be signing people up in the rear toilet, free penicillin shot are also being offered as well as highly encouraged…]

"That's it _Constance,_ laugh it up, but I'm charging for the penicillin…" Reina laughed.

Later around midnight Jason listened to Nicky through the stolen planes head set, only this time she was speaking French and sounding nervous on purpose, _[Venez m'aider, m'aider, m'aider (Mayday, Mayday, Mayday) Jersey Island, are you there? This is x2435 out of London bound for Lisbon, are you there?]_

[_Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! Jersey Field, are you still open? This is x2435 out of London bound for Lisbon. My port engine is sputtering and I am losing altitude… requesting emergency landing clearance…]_

_ {This is control at Cherbourg, Jersey Field is closed. Can you redirect to heading 3.25?}_

_ [Negative, I won't make it Cherbourg. Jersey is in my glide path…]_

_ {Roger 2435, we will try to raise them…}_

She laughed wondering if they would really try. Several minutes went by and she radioed again, [_Cherbourg, this x2435. My engines have flattened out and are running fine. It must have been some bad fuel or something. Sorry to wake you.]_

_ {Roger x2435. Recommend you reroute to Cherbourg for inspection.}_

_ [Negative, resuming flight path... Sorry for panicking, have a nice night, out.]_

She had made the rouse to alter their flight path to take them over the castle without looking suspicious or obvious. She was looking at her stop watch and then glanced at a chart before folding it and jamming it into her pocket. Looking at her stop watch, [96 seconds until the drop zone, open the hatch,] she said over the PA system.

She took off the headset and looked at Bourne who was staring at her blankly. "Don't they have GPSs for that now?"

"Who do you trust more, me or some asshole at Garmin?"

He paused but for a moment, and as she tried to squeeze by him, "You… I _trust_ you…" he said as he cupped her cheek.

She smiled broadly, "I _love_ you too… Let's do this." She took his hand and kissed it hurriedly before waving him on, "come on move it, I have to gear up." She jammed her helmet on and buckled it as he worked to the rear of the plane already in his full gear as were the others. She was strapping her Thompson submachine gun to her chest, when at the rear of the plane Bourne tossed her parachute out of the hatch. She saw him do it and the others looked in surprise from him to her and she did the unexpected, she laughed. "Really Bourne," she reached down to the floorboard of the pilots seat a retrieved the chute she had hidden there, "you thought the best logistic officer in the biz wouldn't pack and extra chute? You are so cliché…" she said as she strapped it on. Her watch beeped, "Line up, sixty seconds."

As they shuffled around and Kirill locked eyes with Bourne and stated in a low firm voice with a thick Russian accent, "They will never touch her…" It was his job to cover the roof and the rear of the house from a distance, protecting Nicky as she hotwired the chopper and also to cover Tanaka as she sabotaged the land vehicles. He saw the resoluteness in the man's eyes, Bourne curtly nodded.

They lined up in their jump order: Paz, Bourne, Parsons, Tanaka, and Kirill. They were all pressed tightly against each other and he heard her watch beep again and Nicky screamed, "GO! GO! GO!" They all went together, one second apart. They each counted to three and pulled their chutes. Each then looked around in the darkness trying to count chutes. He counted five chutes just as something streaked by in front of them and hit their plane that exploded in a burst of fire. They had been expected…


	21. Chapter 21: Am I bugging you?

Chapter 21

2002, Before the Wombosi Mission

Paris France

Jason Bourne blew through the Parisian traffic on his modified Suzuki GSX-R1000 motorcycle at a rate that even he deemed unsafe. The bike was tricked out beyond all comprehension and he was fairly certain it wasn't street legal anywhere in the world; he had hit 212 mph on a track once. The bike was supposed to be secret; it was his get out of Treadstone free card. He had hidden it carefully away months ago and it was supposed to be his life raft for when the shit hit the fan.

When he got the text from Nicky with an 'urgent' flag, which was just a simple comma in a normal sentence, he hadn't thought twice about taking the bike. They had a tiff about the pregnancy almost a week ago, when she had given him his most recent mission and they hadn't spoken since. She knew better than to send him an urgent summons casually though. There wasn't a threat of violence, that was three periods… but he was still concerned enough that he felt like driving the bike up the front stairs and through the front door. Instead he parked it the alley and before he even jumped off the bike or took his helmet off she flung the back door open, "What the hell…" he thought she was going to say 'kept you' but it morphed into, "…is that!"

"A motorcycle…"

"_Great_…" she rolled her eyes in a very spousal manner. He followed her into the house and he saw that it looked like the place had been burglarized. Everything was open and ripped apart, pictures were off the walls. The outlet and wall plates had been removed, and in the kitchen food had been poured out of containers and boxes. She was searching for bugs, and not of the insectoid type.

She was wearing black thigh high boots, she wore them to clubs and in fact she had been wearing them the night she… _they_… had gotten pregnant. Her makeup was night time make up too, but it was three in the afternoon. Her clothes didn't match her boots or makeup; she was wearing a long frumpy paisley skirt and a white handmade blouse; both of which look very unNicky like. It looked like she had mugged a peasant country girl. Her forehead was beaded with sweat, her hands were shaking slightly, and she had braided her very long hair many hours before and it was now frizzy and unkempt. Unkempt… there's a word he had never associated with Nicolette Parsons before.

"Follow me Bourne…"

He knew better than to ask questions when she addressed him by his last name, she would only answer with questions. He obediently followed her to the downstairs bedroom that had been converted into a patient / operating room for physical exams and emergency surgeries if need be. She barked, "Please take your pants off and lay down on the table." She was actually mildly freaking him out to the point where he felt that witty repartee was out of the question. He stripped off his deck boots, jeans, leather jacket, and white undershirt in record time. He put his pistol on an instrument tray.

As he undressed he watched her as she stripped off her peasant rags and she threw them in the bin. She was wearing matching bra and panties, which never actually happens in real life despite what Hollywood portrays. It was a push up bra at that and she was wearing thigh highs. He was more distracted by the bruises on both upper arms and around her neck. "What the hell! What happened?"

She looked down, having forgotten the bruises which were almost a week old now, "Oh, that's nothing…"

"Like hell…"

"I mouthed off to Castel and he tried to strangle me. Don't worry about it, I instigated it. I also took care of it. That's not what this is about, well not really. I'll explain later…"

She pulled a fist full of paper towels out of the wall dispenser and soaked them, she quickly washed the major areas and got a doctors coat of a hook. She started to don the coat and as she was putting it on, her arms were going through the sleeves and her back was arched and he could see her belly; he could have been imagining it but it looked like she was showing already, but only slightly. He saw a hand on her stomach and suddenly realized it was his, he felt the burning warmth of her skin and tautness of her stomach and they both stared at his hand dumbfounded for a moment then their eyes locked and her eyes were warm and inviting and her lip quivered slightly. Then suddenly she remembered that she was supposed to be angry with him and her face went scarlet and she batted his hand away and closed the coat. "_What the fuck do you think you're doing? YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO TOUCH ME THERE!"_ she bellowed.

A dozen things ran through his head, but he wiped his face of emotion and lay backward naked on the table. She glared at him but turned her back and scrubbed her hands, nail bed, and arms for five minutes before donning gloves and glasses. She came over with a tray and he saw a metal tube on it the size of a suppository in sanitary solution. "What the fuck are you going to do with that?" he covered his groin, hoping it was in jest.

Nicky turned and saw him and laughed, mostly at herself. "Sorry… I'll explain in a second…" She dumped a few ounces of iodine on his hip and spread it around. She then used more modern 'antibacterial' methods of sterilization. "You see Bourne; this is a male erectile enhancement device that vibrates for her pleasure…"

"Okay, that's it I'm out of here…"

He started to get up and she threw her elbows down on his chest, "please Jason, stop! Don't make me sterilize again, there isn't time… David! Stop! Conklin will be back soon!"

"Conklin's here?"

"Yes, I'll explain in a minute. He is supposed to witness this and believe me, you _don't_ want him to." She gave him a local and cut a one inch incision and then separated the skin from the muscle creating a pouch. She took the capsule out of the solution and pressed something on the side and a red laser projected numbers and letters on the wall, but she turned it off and started to insert it before he could read it. She sewed the wound closed and taped it.

"Come on we gotta clean up. Start with the front and go toward the back." They cleaned like crazy for thirty minutes and when they were done cleaning he asked, "So, what is that thing? What's going on?"

"It's your insurance policy…" she huffed, blowing loose hair out of her eyes.

"Nicky, what the hell is going on? I've never seen you… disheveled like this…"

She glanced in a mirror, "Shit…" she ran to her office and quickly pulled her hair down and brushed it furiously before pulling it back in a ponytail. She took out make-up removing wipes and took her old make up off and reapplied a fresh layer. She explained as she worked, "Several assets have gone off the grid or acted out lately. Langley wanted tracking devices put in you all…"

He stuttered, "You didn't…"

"No, of course I didn't! I had to drive to Zurich to get it that capsule; I have been traveling all night. I opened a safe deposit box for you there. The number is in that device, which is the same general size and shape of this," she held up the real tracking device. "If you ever have to run it has everything you will need inside: a gun, passports, cash, colored contacts, hair dye, some gold coins, and all kinds of fake legal docs. All are technically through the CIA but they aren't connected to your file, so it will take them some time to trace you…"

"But why track me, I haven't done anything…" She glared at him until he swallowed hard, "They know about us?"

She nodded, "Conklin put out a contract on me."

"He did what? Contract with who, Castel? Not me?" he gaped.

"No, I told him I would take care of it personally, because you might check into the alibis for Conklin and the other assets but wouldn't suspect me."

"Huh?"

She smiled slyly, "He knows you have a 'local attachment' and wants her put down. He doesn't know that it's me?"

It was definitely a question, although one that she clearly felt uncomfortable asking, "You don't need to ask that question. There hasn't been anyone else."

Before she could respond her phone rang, Nicky looked to see who it was before answering on speaker, "Hey ReTa, its Nic and JB…"

"Code in Sparrow," Reina said in a terse voice.

She rolled her eyes, "Rusty is a cowboy…"

"…to the flickering lights of Sharky's Machine…"

"So, what did you find out?"

"Wow, glad to hear from you too dearest. First of all, as trivial as all this is, it was obscenely difficult to find out; it was really buried deep at Langley. Lucky for you, I am in the same predicament you are in Nic, minus the sex unfortunately. Langley has been having security issues with their databases and called in an 'expert' to crush the hacker…"

Nicky laughed, "Nice…"

"Hey JB, how often are you having a Roy?" she asked in her thick Australian accent.

"Huh?"

"Having a Roy? Rough up the Bishop? You know, practicing Hand to Gland Combat? Or in your case, Crank the Yank?"

"Uh, I don't know. A few times a week why?"

"Discharge into a condom next time and toss it in the bin. They caught onto you two because you stopped using protection; shame on you both by the by… That is a sure sign that the relationship is too serious."

Nicky and Jason exchanged looks…

Reina continued, "Yeah, that's what I said… Oh, Nicky dearest, I would keep tossing other things in the bin once a month too. They haven't noticed that yet. These buggers are sick though, so they will. They track absolutely everything. Meanwhile, I need to figure out what kinds of odd things to throw out this week, anyone know where I can buy a vibrating Michael J Fox sex doll?"

Nicky giggled uncharacteristically, "ReTa, that's so wrong!"

"Which part: throwing it out or using it first? Later kids, I wish you well…"

Nicky hung up, "Well, at least we aren't bugged or under some sort of actual surveillance."

They cleaned like crazy people for thirty minutes before they heard Conklin's rental car pull up. They hurled the cleaning supplies on top of the pile of rice, cereal, oats, beans, and crushed up pop tarts that were heaped together in the middle of the kitchen floor and hoped to keep Conklin out of that room.

"You should probably get dressed…" she had been cleaning in her underwear.

"Shit…" she forced the tracker into his hand, "you need to swallow that…now." She bolted upstairs to change.

Jason bolted to her office to pour a tall Cognac and desperately tried to force the pill down as Alexander Conklin buzzed the door to be let in. Jason realized that he had never been inside when someone needed to come in and didn't know how to open the magnetic lock. The buzzer sounded again, longer and clearly irritated. He heard the counter buzz unlocking the door; she must have a trigger upstairs as well.

A clearly irritated Conklin shouted, "Nicky! Way to be on the ball, you going to keep me standing… Bourne…" Conklin froze obviously not expecting to see him there, especially without Nicky present. Bourne knew his cheeks were flushed from the cleaning and screwed his eyes into Conklin in mock anger.

"I'm sorry _sir_. I didn't know how to buzz you in. No one has ever come here during an _evaluation_ before…" Bourne was clearly insinuating that his boss was intruding on his time.

"Yes, of course. Sorry to interrupt but I need to see you."

"Yes, she explained…" he said icily as they heard her coming down the stairs, "that you were here to witness her fitting me with a homing beacon. I am in the middle of a mission sir, you do understand I had to break contact to come here…" his voice may have been full of ice but his eyes were burning with fire.

"Neither of which was my call soldier. Come on Nicky let's get this over with…" both men gawked at her wardrobe. She was dressed in a leather jacket, jeans, Doc Martin boots, a scarf, and was holding leather gloves.

"What? I asked him if he would take me for a ride…" she explained. Bourne looked at her stomach, then to her eyes sternly and she reciprocated staring at his then back to his eyes as they silently had the 'we're pregnant so you have to sell your motorcycle' conversation, "besides, I already did it."

"You knew I was supposed to be present," Conklin's eyes narrowed.

"He insisted sir. He was very upset at having to interrupt his assignment… I already had one incident this week sir. Bourne's always been stable, but we are jeopardizing his mission and you know how… dedicated he is. I can open it up again."

Conklin sighed, "Just show it to me…" Jason showed him the wound and he made Jason turn his pockets out. "Okay Nicky, pull it up on the computer. Jason, please walk some distance away."

"Why don't you start the bike, I'll be out in a second." He looked to Conklin who nodded.

"What are you playing at Parson's?" he demanded once Bourne was gone.

"You told me to take care of his 'attachment' which is what I'm doing. I also argued that these guys need sex…"

"I was there Parson's, it was yesterday…" he snapped.

"…and you barked 'take care of that too'. So, I'm doing what you asked. I was thinking earlier," he rolled his eyes, "that you want his girlfriend gone, there are other ways to accomplish that with resorting to homicide you know? You told me to get rid of her; I'll have her gone in two weeks one way or the other. I was horrified that you ordered me to fuck him, like I was some kind of CIA whore…"

He was clearly taken aback, not only by her account of the conversation, but also by her uncharacteristically long speech as well as her brazenness, "That's not what I meant and you damn well know it, I meant hire a fucking hooker for him for Christ's sake…"

"Yeah right," she scoffed,"…and not tell him? He'd see through her in a second and think she was an enemy op or something and take a blowtorch to her. Or, did you want me to hire her and tell him she was a hooker just so he could waste your money. He wouldn't fuck a hooker sir; he's an Eagle Scout for God's sake…"

"How do you know…?"

"How could I not sir? Look at the man! You knew _exactly_ what you were asking me to do or you're a fool," her eyes narrowed to slits and she kept inching closer to him, causing him to back up. "We both know you're no fool. So, drop the innocent BS. I'll keep him in line, but this is between us _only, _it _doesn't_ go it the file. All four of us win. You get to keep your 30 million dollar tin man, he and I both get to take care of our basic needs, and the bimbo gets to live."

"Well, it's your call…"

"No, you _ordered_ me to _sir_! I expect a glowing review, which I am past due for, and a nice pay increase because being a 'Company whore' wasn't in my job description, neither was being celibate or chaste. I always assumed I was under the 'don't have a boyfriend' rule as well?" he looked down at her boots and realized she had slowly walked him backwards into a wall. "I am _NOT_ one of your four daughters Alexander Conklin and I won't let you treat me like that anymore. I sick of living in this Ivory Tower you built for me. I am sick of wondering if people back at Langley are watching me every damn second. I can't pick my nose or fart in my own house without wondering if you and Danny Zorn are watching me… I live in a maximum security prison!"

He genuinely looked concerned and even warm for a moment, "I'm really sorry Nicky. I just wanted you to be safe. I guess I never thought about it like that."

"Look…Alex…" she said respectfully as she held up her hands which were shaking, "you have us _all_ wound up way too tight. I know you think that is a good thing but not for this long…"

He nodded slowly, "you're right," he admitted grudgingly. "We all could use a break. Once Bourne and Manheim are done with their missions we will stand down for three weeks. I will order everyone to leave their work phones at home and leave their various counties. I could use some time myself…"

She patted him on the shoulder and nodded, "sorry about popping off sir…"

"You do understand you spoke more to me in the last five minutes than the last two years?"

She laughed, "Well I am very opinionated but usually I keep quiet…" he snorted in response just as the motorcycle revved."Well come on, out with you," she motioned him out the door to which he raised an eyebrow. "Safe house protocols state that without one of the _local_ agents in charge present the premises should be secured…"

"I wrote those protocols…"

"…and they are totally brilliant!" She locked the door after herself and hit a car alarm like device on her key chain, activating the houses defenses. "Don't wait up dad… have a safe flight."

He watched as Bourne handed her the one helmet he had and then they sped off and Conklin wondered if he had just been completely had. Subconsciously with his left hand he checked for his wallet as his other hand reached for his car keys…


	22. Chapter 22: Dropping in

Chapter 22

Present Day

Jersey Island, the English Channel

As the five assets floated to earth at a painfully slow rate, they all knew they were going in hot, which wasn't Plan A. They immediately had to switch their assignments to a Hot Read. None of them relished dropping into a hot landing zone, but it was too late to back out now and the noise from the wind made communication virtually impossible.

Jason knew that Nicky was looking at him, but he couldn't bring himself to look back. He started inhaling deeply and felt the adrenaline rush through him. He knew Nicky would hit first even though she wasn't first in the jump order, she was landing on the roof on the helipad. He saw movement on the roof as he slipped passed it and heard muffled gunfire as men in full combat gear opened up on them.

_Paz's story:_

Paz Carrasco hit the ground and pulled the release cord for his chute and rolled right in a 'parachute landing fall' (PLF). He didn't bother unslinging his rifle as he sprinted fifteen feet to a rocky outcropping. He was about a hundred meters from the house but was exactly where he should be if Reina's intel and Nicky's calculations were correct. He pulled out the retooled car alarm keypad and hit the unlock button. For an agonizingly long ten seconds nothing happened, and then he heard the hatch release, the sound of decompressing air, and a glint of light as the exit door to the secret escape tunnel opened.

He pushed the door open and the smell of dank air, rust, and wet earth hit him. He suddenly hoped that the ventilation still worked as he descended into the darkness.

The tunnels origins stretched back to the Nazi occupation of the island but it had been updated and modified several times but had fallen into disrepair since the seventies when the helicopter pad was installed. He nervously disarmed the old antipersonnel devices and hoped that they wouldn't trigger just to spite him. He returned to the opening and set a trap of his own, just in case he missed Magpie in the commotion, or if someone had seen him and decided to follow him.

He closed the door behind him and hustled down the tunnel hoping that no one had added traps since Reina had discovered the tunnel almost ten years ago. He drew his Glock sidearm as a precaution but didn't expect to need it. He reached the end of the tunnel without incident and took the metal spiral staircase up several stories and then disarmed the traps on this side of the door. He could hear talking on the other side and he waited thirty seconds for the talking to cease before opening the door, it made a grating noise which Reina had warned him to expect.

He saw the CIA goon whirling to see what made the noise behind him. They both fired at the same time but Paz had the element of surprise and was simply in a different league. Paz's single pistol round hit him in the teeth and severed his spine but didn't kill him, at least not instantly. The hit man fell to the ground unable to move and Paz stooped and grabbed his headset and walkie talkie before ducking back into the alcove. He donned the enemy headset on the other ear and holstered his pistol and unslung his AA-12 Combat shotgun. It looked more like an M-16 than a typical hunting shotgun as is was made for urban military warfare.

He pressed the transmission button on his normal head set, [Osprey to team, I am inside and tapped into their communications. Headed to women's dorms; Osprey out.]

He stepped out and shut the door as he stepped over the dying man and turned down the hall to the west wing where he heard gunfire and women screaming. The recruits were being cleansed.

_Bourne's story:_

Bourne's landing zone was right in front of the house if it was a hot read, right next to the old fountain which he could dive into or behind to use as cover.

Jason hit the ground two feet from the rear of the fountain and instead executing a normal PLF he fell backward and rolled, keeping his knees bent. His back, neck, and head all took a jolt but nothing unlike the vicious tackles his brother used to inflict on him during football practice. He was trying to keep pressure off the ball of his right foot and his left knee which were still healing.

He hit the release for his chute and rolled closer to the fountain. He ripped off his goggles and helmet with distain. He wasn't upset at the gear which had served its purpose, but at the fact that things were going to get bloody. He wanted to run a clean snatch and grab mission, get the intel and get out. If this was a CIA kill squad sent to wipe out the recruits then they had come in force and with a significant number of troops. Bourne knew the odds of any of his team making it out alive were close to zero. He wanted to radio Nicky to take the chopper and go, but knew she wouldn't.

He forced Nicky out of his mind and crawled to the far end of the fountain and saw a shooter on the balcony and Bourne adjusted his sight for his M203 grenade launcher that was mounted under his M4 assault rifle. He knew the exact range, having lived here two years, which made up for not having fired one of these in five years. His shot hit the wall ten feet above his target but it was close enough. He saw the figure thrown towards him and their rifle went spiraling into the night. He knew two things seeing the figure thrown forward. First of all he knew it was a woman and second, he knew by the way that she fell that she was dead. She fell backward, lifeless and cracked her head on the patio.

Bourne unslung a satchel from his side and opened the flap. He pressed the power button on the electronic device to activate it. It was a jammer for electronic communications that was set up to block every frequency but theirs and could be remotely activated, which was the plan. Just as he was hoping he had set it right he heard a voice in his ear piece, [Osprey to team, I am inside and tapped into their communications. Headed to women's dorms; Osprey out.]

Bourne spoke into the mic listening to gun fire all over the campus, [Phoenix to team, jammer set but not activated, and front is clear, proceeding in.]

_Nicky's story:_

Nicky Parsons was due to hit the ground first, even though she was third out of the plane, since her LZ was the helipad which was on the fourth floor. When she was 10ft from the roof she saw the four men near a stack of crates and the empty stinger missile launcher on the ground. They were turned away from her, but the wind was going to take her past them. Not relishing landing directly in front of them, she hit her release and fell to the ground hard and heard something in her leg snap.

Her parachute kept going and enveloped one of the men and out of nothing but instinct Parsons grabbed a piece of a brick laying next to her, it must have broken off of a chimney and tossed it at the men, _"Fire in the hole!"_ she shrieked with genuine panic in her voice. The men scattered and the man that was in her chute became further ensnarled and her eyes instinctively went wide in horror as he stumbled over the knee high wrought iron gate that surrounded the black topped roof and pitched head first onto the sloped Spanish tiles and slid over the edge. She rolled to her feet and tried to sprint for cover as did the others and the falling man screamed as he plummeted to the earth.

She half sprinted and half limped to the scant cover of a huge raised glass skylight that was above the main staircase. She fell behind it as one of the agents figured out her ruse and sprayed gunfire in her direction. She needlessly sucked in her gut as the skylight shattered into a billion shards, raining down on anyone unlucky enough to be standing below.

Parsons drew her M1 Thompson submachine gun and blindly dumped the whole clip in their general direction. She released the spent 20 round stick magazine and hammered in another mag. Her teammates had teased her about her selection of weaponry. The M1 Thompson was designed in the late 1920's and was used extensively throughout World War II but it was prohibition era mobsters that made the 'Chicago Typewriter' famous. She liked it because of its simplicity, elegance, and that if fired a .45 caliber round verses the normal 9mm round that most other SMG's fired. Forty fives were designed for trench warfare and she loved the stopping power. Nine mils were designed to kill Europeans, for dangerous people she preferred the .45.

The doctor in her felt the blood drain from her face and the cold sweat on her forehead, she knew her leg was broken but was trying to ignore it; her body was trying to go into shock but she knew how to fight that. She knew she had broken one of the two bones of her lower right leg, so she could still stand, but it felt like she had a broken beer bottle inside her calf. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Constance Lindbergh the pilot approved of it being the right leg that was broken, the left was pivotal in the operation of a helicopter.

She quickly became trapped in a blind fire shooting match which lasted several minutes which did little but waste precious ammunition. Lying on her back she held the Thompson up and fired a volley where she heard movement, she knew they were flanking her but there was little she could do.

Suddenly she had an idea. She fired the rest of her clip and yanked the mag out and threw it down. Quickly she whipped her pistol out and sat up and fired a volley at the man flanking her on the left, they had charged knowing her gun was empty. She hit him at least three times out of five and she collapsed backward as a volley of bullets arrived from the other two men. She smiled faintly, she knew that trick wouldn't work again, but at least she had breathing room. She reloaded both weapons and started crawling closer to the man she dropped.

She heard an explosion from the front center of the house and hoped it was from Bourne. A short while later she heard Paz's voice in her ear, [Osprey to team, I am inside and tapped into their communications. Headed to women's dorms; Osprey out.]

Then she heard Jason's voice, [Phoenix to team, jammer set but not activated and the front is clear, proceeding in.]

She swallowed hard and tried to control her shaking voice to hide her pain. [Phoenix,] she gulped some air with the mic off, [please dump any remaining 40mm rounds near the south east roof access…] She knew he had three rounds and had only thought she heard one.

There was a long knowing pause; he knew she was hurt, [Roger, one round coming Sparrow: be ready to adjust arty (artillery)].

She heard a whistle which she knew was good, you didn't hear the whistle if the shell was coming down on you. It hit well behind them, he was being too careful. [Phoenix… danger close: adjust 20 yards forward, 5 to rear of house.]

[Rounds ready on your order.]

She covered her ears and yelled, _"Fire in the hole!" _and was granted the effect she was looking for as one of the pair surged forward, thinking it was a ploy and the last used suppressing fire. [Fire,] she breathed. The round hit behind him and flung him forward and he fell through the skylight and into the house.

[I'm spent Sparrow, proceeding on task.] She used the distraction to get up and struggle to a doorway to a stairwell firing a clip sporadically as she went; she ducked behind it rather than into the stairwell.

[You got one, thanks for the help… Oriole, you should have a clean shot…] She waited for a response from Kirill as she loaded her one and only drum magazine, but her only response was silence…

_Reina's story:_

Reina Tanaka landed on the rear lawn without incident and released her chute. Without waiting to draw a weapon or remove her jump gear she took off at a full sprint, zigging and zagging for the motor pool. She was out in the open and didn't relish the thought of being sniper bait. She was the most at risk but had the least trouble as she made it to the motor pool garage without incident. She stole a quick look back at the house and saw the muzzle flashes on the roof. She swallowed hard and rolled under the half open garage door, which she took as an ominous sign. Once inside though, she could feel the emptiness of the room and knew no one was laying in wait. She quickly shoved balled up black socks in all the tail pipes of the cars to prevent their use, it was the quickest way to disable a large number of cars that they could think of, they didn't want anyone to escape to the airport.

After disabling the main vehicles, Tanaka went to the second escape tunnel and as she started to open the door, which was concealed behind a large tool cabinet, she heard the motor for the door fire up and instantly dove out of the way. She wished she had taken time to remove her goggles, ninja mask and helmet as they limited her vision and were flat out annoying.

Standing in the shadows Tanaka saw a slightly familiar shape slink out of the secret passage and they eyed the half open garage door warily. After a moment Margaret illuminated a flashlight and panned the garage with a small pistol in one hand and the light in the other.

Directly behind her Tanaka whispered, "Drop it… now! The torch too…"

Magpie heard the hushed female voice and mistook her identity, "Really Nicolette? You don't have the stones. Mayday is 'mayday' in every language by the way, even French; Dr. Hirsch always knew your perfectionism would be your downfall! _Medusa's locks…_" she breathed the last part like a curse word.

"Konnichi wa gozaimasu," Reina teased with a formal greeting as she rifle butted her as hard as she could and knocked Magpie to her knees, the gun and light spun free of her hands and clattered to the ground. Reina zip tied her hands with riot cuffs before she could come to her senses. Tanaka undid the chin strap and shed her helmet, goggles and mask. "I'm not Parsons…" Reina said icily.

Margaret eyes widened, "You're dead, it was reported that you were tied off!"

"Nah, you read it wrong love… ticked off. It said I was _ticked off _and I still am!" Tanaka rifle butted her again and this time rendered her unconscious.

She searched her thoroughly as she listened to the teams radio chatter. She found some duct tape and used it to nearly mummify her. It sounded like Parsons was in pain as well as extremely busy but Reina had to pick her brain. [Sparrow, which tooth would most likely hold a cyanide capsule?]

{Usually it's a rear molar. Why?} Reina could hear bullets hitting around Nicky.

[Because, I took Magpie alive… she is unconscious…]

Bourne butted in, (Don't risk it. Take all of them, do it fast and strap her in your jump harness, we might have to air lift her out of there. Was there Intel?)

[Yeah, couple of thumb drives, a RSA SecurID Token, and a red binder.]

(Dump her into the bed of a pickup and proceed on mission…)

Nicky interrupted, {God damn it Oriole, where are you! I could use some AP*here!} *Armor Piecing

Nothing but silence answered her, {_Kirill…_! Kirill…?!}

_Kirill's story:_

Mikhail Kirill's LZ was the snipers tower which was at the rear of the property and had a clear view of the roof. He was to cover the rear of the house and Parson's as she hotwired and did the preflight of the chopper.

As he floated towards his landing zone he realized there was a slight problem with their plan, as he saw a muzzle flash from the tower and realized it was occupied. They hadn't planned on that and he rapidly was running out of time to plan. He adjusted course to take him to the tower itself, swinging around behind it. He didn't have explosives or a normal rifle which made taking a team nearly impossible; he could see that there were at least two figures in the tower. Landing on the tin roof was laughable. His only chance to handle them quickly and safely was to try to hit it sideways, grab the railing, then hopefully take them out with his side arm. It was risky but he had little choice and was rapidly running out of options.

He circled around and tried to judge the speed of his decent and the distance to the tower which was hard to do at night. He came up a couple of feet shorter than he would have liked, his torso hit the railing hard and his pistol flew out of his hand and actually hit the sniper in the head just as he was taking a shot. While not ideal he was able to throw his arm over the railing and secure footing on the outside of the nest. He cursed his luck, but it was fortuitous for Nicky who the sniper had been lining up a shot on as she lay prone on the roof.

Both men were sitting on crates, used to simulate Oswald's shot and the spotter was the first to react, he spun and half leaned for the trap door which was still closed. Kirill's chute continued over the top of the nest and Kirill instinctively used the pull of the chute to lift him and he swung his legs over, clutching the railing for dear life. The spotter charged and Kirill planted his feet and then ducked, his parachute cords clothes lined the man unintentionally. In a moment of inspiration brought by desperation, Kirill looped some of his parachute lines around the spotter's neck then ran at the sniper, choking the spotter in his wake.

He drew his combat knife as the sniper went for a pistol, always a mistake. They were fighting in a five by five box, the pistol would be useless. Police departments the world over trained that if a man is inside of ten feet with a knife then go for your baton, very few people can clear and fire in the amount of time it takes to clear the distance.

Kirill swiped at the man's face and cut to the bone under the eye, a nonfatal hit, but the gun fumbled from his grip before it was entirely in his grasp. Kirill whipped the blade back in the other direction and would've cut the agents throat if he hadn't been pulled backward by the man ensnarled in his chute who was desperately fighting for air. Kirill grasped a fistful of parachute line with his left hand and surged forward, his blade weaving in front of him in the darkness.

His opponent had finally drawn his knife and came at Kirill unfettered and with determination. The man was good and after a flurry of parries and feints he swiped at Kirill's jugular and would have hit home had the spotter that was working his way free of the parachute line not kicked Kirill in the back of both knees, forcing him to the ground.

Kirill knew his own abilities and knew them well. He knew he could take the man in front of him one on one, but the man behind him was almost free from the chute and he couldn't take them both in a five foot area. When he saw the dark spherical shape on the man's belt he didn't hesitate, he grabbed the grenade, found the pin, and pulled. There was a loud 'thump' as the grenade hit the wooden floor. Kirill bolted upright, locking eyes with the man and breathed, "Fire in the hole" in a barely audible tone and then flung himself over the front railing.


	23. Chapter 23: Pulling teeth

Chapter 23

Present Day

Jersey Island, the English Channel

_Paz's story:_

Paz Carrasco arrived at the women's wing as a team of five agents were sweeping from room to room mowing down assets in training. One or two must have gotten screams or shots off before they were killed and the rest of the women were now awake and putting up a fight. They weren't supposed to have firearms, but all the recruits had squirreled away or constructed some form of weapon even if it was just a sharpened toothbrush.

Paz came up behind three of the agents covering the end of the hall and laid down a wall of buckshot the size of the Great Wall of China. Without emotion he dropped the spent magazine from the gun and slammed home another. He had no emotion on his face as he stuck his gun around the corner and fired another clip down the hall at two agents that had whirled around at the noise of his shotgun obliterating the other agents from behind. He reloaded and then took his pistol out and fired a round into the heads of the first three men, at least one of which was still alive.

"Is anyone alive down there?" he shouted. He got no response. "Listen carefully, there are three factions fighting in the compound tonight, only one of which is your enemy. I am with a team of former graduates; we are here to help you. You and the other male trainees are the second group. The last consist of a CIA clean up squad sent to murder all of us and burn down the program. Please do NOT shot indiscriminately at people you don't know. Yell 'broken' to identify yourself and counter with 'silence'. Form up; strip these men, group up in the kitchen with the other male recruits. Steal a ship or plane together to get off the island and run as far and fast as you can. Hide, disappear. They will send others to kill you. Do you understand?"

For a long moment no one answered and then there was a curt, "We understand."

"Someone come arm themselves, I'm not leaving until one of you is armed."

No one came out.

"Okay, whoever comes out first gets the first pick of the weapons…"

A woman came skittishly out of one of the front rooms she was barely dressed and had obviously hidden early into the fight. Another came from the end of the hall and was in fatigues. As they grabbed two rifles and started checking the actions and clips, he turned to leave and the scantily clad woman asked, "What's your name?" Her voice was hollow and her eyes weren't really focusing on what she was doing.

He saw the blood all over her arms and hands and realized that she had been trying to help someone, "Paz…"

"Peace?" she laughed slightly. "You're name means peace…" it wasn't a question so he merely nodded."Thank you, I hope you find it one day…" she said it with such a profound and heart wrenching since of loss that he did a double take. She leaned in and kissed him, but barely touched his lips, "thank you Paz… Clairisa…"

The other woman stormed over; clearly irritated, she grabbed the kneeling woman and pulled her to her feet, "No time for love Dr. Jones. Pants, shirt, shoes… now!" She shoved her into the room she came from. Other women poured into the hall, about ten in all, and started stripping the bodies. "Sorry," the other woman explained, "she's been a bit off ever since they brought her back from reeducation."

Paz nodded and trod off to the men's dorms. His route took him across the main stairs, to the other wing. He heard a fire fight and started trotting, encumbered by his gear.

_Jason's story:_

Bourne slipped in the front door, half expecting a claymore to go off, but the house had an eerie stillness about it. He slipped in the door and worked his way down the right hand side of the room and under the banister. He had his gun trained on the two main stairs that spiraled up and away from him. The castle like structure still awed him, both in its scale and grandeur. The ground ahead of him was covered in glass and the moment of silence passed as he heard the rapid fire of Nicky's Thompson, from this range it really did sound like an old typewriter. He saw her brass shell casings raining to the ground in front of him; he glanced up and saw the gun held sideways over the ledge as she fired blind at her attackers.

As he slipped through the door way to the right he heard the roar of Paz's shotgun emptying a full magazine and it certainly would draw attention away from him and towards Paz, which was the plan. His M4 was suppressed and part of plan B was to have Paz try to arm the recruits as a make shift militia and draw fire from the sensitive Intel areas that he and Reina would be going after to raid.

He walked down the long hallway and briefly had a flashback and he fought it for once, bottling it up. He knew Hirsch's office was ahead. As he approached he heard voices and saw frantic movement and wondered about friendly fire for a split second, but he knew Nicky was on the roof, had heard Paz upstairs and Reina was pulling teeth. He reached for the door and he remembered in his flashback that the door squeaks shrilly and retracted his hand. He leaned against the closed half double door and listened. Jason heard a bunch of men searching the room from top to bottom, which would save him valuable time if they were planning on saving the intel. All he would have to do would be to take it from them. He waited many long minutes as a man with a nasally voice barked orders and had any intel thrown into a bag.

He heard the man barking orders, "Okay, we're done here. You two, get up stairs to the Northern tower access and sweep and clear on the way, make sure that old bat isn't up there. Once you're there, get on the roof and take out whoever is up there. You'll be two or three stories higher and behind the interlopers. If it's a woman, try to take her alive if possible. You three get down to the substructure and cleanse it. Grab what you can, burn the rest. You encounter anything, kill it. You get trapped or cornered, you don't get creative; just burn it up."

"Yes sir," they answered.

"Everyone back here in fifteen or you're swimming home."

Bourne pulled back into the darkness as the five men ran past him and for a split second Jason Bourne the assassin was going to let them go, fixated on the priority target in the next room. Then he remembered he was part of a team; Reina and Nicky weren't outfitted for a prolonged firefight. David Webb the SEAL took over. He took three quick strides after them, indifferent to the noise and moved directly behind them and fired half a clip at head level and flipped to three round burst. He dropped the last two men in the line instantly and clipped two of the others who fell. He killed the other with a three round burst and then finished off the other two.

Ignoring the gore that now covered him; he switched magazines, flipped back to full auto, and rushed back to the office. As he entered he started to sweep it from the left to the right, but stopped abruptly. There was a bookcase pulled away from the wall revealing a spiral staircase going up, he knew it went to the helipad. He charged to give chase, knowing it was the only other way out of the office. As he heard the two gun shots and felt their impacts he was propelled forward and he twisted and intentionally spun as he fell and landed on his back and played dead.

"You just never learn do you? I assume it's Bourne?" asked the nasally voice from what had been directly behind him. Jason heard him walk closer in order to see Jason's head for a proper kill shot, "I do learn however," he said as he raised his gun for the kill shot.

_Nicky's story:_

Parson's felt the suppressing fire closing in around her as the two remaining heavily armored commandos slowly flanked her position. She knew that her field of defilade was growing narrower and narrower as one of the men was almost directly to her right and she would soon have no place to hide.

She felt the cold winter wind blowing on her furiously and she looked up to say a silent prayer and saw the brilliance of the starry sky and muttered to her Thompson, "Fuck it, let's roll Fred…" She spun to the left and ducked around the corner of the stairway, and took a knee. She was now completely exposed to one man, but completely shielded to the other.

She started to lay down a stream of fire down on the man facing her, as he raised his weapon. She had caught him while advancing and he was in mid trot. Her first few rounds hit a foot to his left and as she started to spray her weapon when suddenly it stopped firing. She knew it was jammed but it didn't matter, in the fraction of the second it took the man to raise his weapon and fire the only thing that went through her head was that she hoped the man was a good shot.

_Reina's story:_

After Reina finished pulling Magpies teeth she strapped her into her parachute harness and left her face down in the bed of a truck so she wouldn't drown in her own blood.

She took off down the escape tunnel and didn't bother searching for traps; Magpie looked too panicked when she came out of the tunnel to bother resetting anything. She moved as fast as she dared across the metal scaffolding and as she approached the end of the tunnel she heard talking and she killed the torch she had appropriated from Margret and snuck over to a door just as she head a man's voice say, "You just never learn do you? I assume it's Bourne?" She saw him walking away from her and a body sprawled on the floor on the other side of him. "I do learn however," he said as he raised his gun.

_"Do you now!"_ she shouted as a distraction as she did a quick draw on her pistol and fired from the hip twice.

The rounds hit the man, who was facing away from her, in the middle of his back and propelled him forward as Bourne kicked him in the groin and shouted, "Don't kill him, we need him alive!"

The man staggered back away and spun firing at Reina and she fired back a blizzard of bullets flying between the two. Jason saw them both get hit by multiple rounds as he lashed out trying to trip him, but he was too late as the agent sprinted and flung himself headlong out the window. The stained glass window shattered into a million pieces as Reina took chase and Bourne did and awkward instant stand, he was laden down with nearly a hundred pounds of gear.

Bourne ran to the window and drew his pistol and fired a volley of shots and the fleeing man as Reina charged to jump out the window, "No! Leave him!" he yelled. "He dropped the intel." She looked hesitant and he saw blood on her. He nodded to it, "You caught one…"

"Fuck!" she looked at her arm and felt it. "Oh, no that's from Margret, from when I wiped my hands." She loosened the bottom two velco flaps to her body armor and felt underneath, making sure the bullets that hit her were stopped by the vest. "Want me to check you?"

"Sure, the back…" He turned around and she felt under his vest. He felt her stop at two of his scars, "those are old…"

"Jesus, no wonder she got us armor. Looks like fan-boy had it too… What the hell is geek boy doing here anyway?"

"You know him?"

"Yeah, he is that guy from Apple that was…" she trailed off.

"…sleeping with Nicky?"

"Yeah… So, what's the deal?"

"Well, I doubt he works for Apple. Get down to the mainframes, hurry… We are running out of time."

"Sure thing Blue Eyes…"

_Kirill's story: _

When Mikhail Kirill dove out of the sixty foot high snipers nest, which resembled a watch tower for forest fires, he knew he had but seconds to live if he timed this wrong. He dove out the front of the nest, which was the opposite of the way he had entered it. He hoped that the parachute would snag or that the man caught up in it hadn't freed himself yet. Regardless of which occurred, he did arc under the nest and was able to hook the scaffolding with one foot and then the other just as some more slack came into the line and Kirill fell further, flipping him upside down. As he hung upside down, he grabbed the ladder in a bear hug just as the grenade detonated.

To say that the nest was totally obliterated wouldn't technically be correct. The four by four frame work was attached to the ladder and scaffolding still, which made it appear comical. The entire roof, walls, and floor had been blown away and pieces of it where raining down. He felt the tremendous yank on his chute that he had been waiting for as the man's dead weight plummeted to earth ensnarled in his chute along with what felt like half the weight of the structure.

He tried in vain to release his chute, it wouldn't budge. He reached for his combat knife before realizing he threw it down to grab the grenade. As he hung there it felt as though he were going to be drawn and quartered. Looking down, or rather up in his case, he saw that his legs had taken a lot of shrapnel from debris. He saw a jagged piece of tin roofing jutting out of his leg and grabbed it to cut himself free.

He tried to ignore the blood spurting from the place where he took the metal as well as the dozen other wounds as he hung by his feet and held the metal in two hands as he sawed out of fear of dropping it. It was tough going for a minute, but the weight being placed on the line helped. Finally freeing himself, he almost fell out of shear relief. He tucked the metal in his pocket just in case he needed it later. He carefully unclipped his rifle bag and clipped it securely to the ladder. He undid his normal belt, a web belt similar to way boy scouts wear and cinched it about his upper leg to stop the blood loss. The other leg would need to wait.

He assembled his sniper rifle as quickly as he dared, out of fear of dropping a piece. He couldn't figure a good way to easily sit upright and fire. Using the strap from his weapon bag he lashed himself to the ladder and then hung upside down and looked down the scope. He couldn't focus for a moment and thought that he may be concussed, only then did he realize that he couldn't hear either.

Kirill squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to focus and looked through the scope again. Just then he saw Parson's advance and kneel before firing at a man in full combat armor and then she suddenly stopped firing and lowered her weapon. Kirill exhaled and fired at the man, it was a chest shot but his armored piercing rounds cut through the man's armor like it was butter. He steadied the gun and saw Nicky pressing her mic button and talking into it. She looked in his direction and then pointed at her eyes and then over her shoulder and held up one finger.

He saw her go through the motions of clearing the jam in her gun and he knew that he couldn't see the other man and that she knew it, the stairwell was obstructing it. She whipped her head around the corner and fired a spray of bullets.

Her fire helped him located the other man on the roof; he was still blocked by the stairwell. He watched Nicky as she tried to reload and realize that she was out of SMG ammo. She threw down the Thompson in frustration and pulled out her pistol. He watched her fire two rounds and then duck behind cover. Kirill finally saw the man show his face and Kirill exhaled and fired at the upside down figure and watched his head explode.

Kirill put his hand to his Mic button, [Sparrow, if you can hear me you're clear.] He still couldn't hear a thing, usually there was at least ringing so he knew this was a bad sign. He looked in the scope and she was talking into her Mic.

[Sparrow if you're getting this, give a thumbs up,] which she did. [I was deafened and have leg injuries and I'm losing a lot of blood. I'm not going to make the rendezvous. I don't think I can make it to the ground, but I'll try. Oriel out…]

He watched for another moment as she ran and procured another rifle and ammo from one of the downed agents and then headed to the chopper to hotwire it.

_Paz's story:_

Paz Carrasco cleared the men's dorm and then proceeded to Maggie's room and did a quick sweep for intel and grabbed her laptop and a few other things. He then headed to the stairs and down to the office. He had expended a lot of ammo and was a lot lighter now, he was relived because the house was a lot quieter now, a lot of the fighting had died off but he felt like he was being watched from everywhere and he probably was.

He reached the office and found Jason behind a flipped over desk, using it as cover. "Mr. Bourne…"

Jason looked troubled, "None of this adds up…"

"What?"

"We had the leader of this group cornered and instead of fleeing to the chopper he stayed to fight then he dove out the window and ran off…"

"Well maybe he couldn't…"

"There is a tunnel to the motor pool too…"

"Maybe he needed exorcize?" he said jovially and shrugged.

Bourne suddenly blurted over the Mic, [Sparrow did you start the preflight?]

{Ouch! Inside voices please… No, I just got in.}

[Get out, get out of the chopper. I think they rigged the vehicles already. Check it.]

{Damn… I'm on it.}

"Paz, get up to the chopper and help her. Look for multiple devices and sabotage. They probably did at least two."

"Will do… Are you good on ammo," he held up his rifle.

"Yeah, I'm good. Go! I'll wait for Reina."

Nicky chimed in a minute later, {you were right; I should be in Near Earth Orbit right now. Speaking of which there are some more Stingers up here. Should I get him to load them so they aren't fired at us later?}

[Yeah, good call. Grab them.]

Five minutes turned to ten at an agonizing rate. [Come on Reina, you're out of time. Let's roll…] Bourne demanded.

{I'm done, on the stairs now.}

True to her word she slipped in the room a moment later and they bounded up the stairs, taking two at a time. [Fire it up Nicky.]

By the time they got to the third floor they heard the rotors spinning up and as they got to the roof Jason half lifted and half shoved Reina into the chopper. Jason climbed in and slid the door closed just as the chopper lifted off. He grabbed a headset so he could talk to her, "Put us down in front of the garage."

She banked the chopper and they dipped over the roof and as they landed the three others ran to get Magpie. Reina showed them where she was and covered them as they carried her back. Both men were too laden down to carry her on their own. They flung her in the chopper and took off again to pick up Kirill.

"Jason you know why we wanted him to meet us at a different LZ. I can't see that tower in the dark. I could crash right into it."

"Turn the lights on."

She glared at him, "Are you nuts?"

He glared back at her, "It's that or walk. Dead or alive, we aren't leaving him."

She frowned, "Fine. I don't want to hear jokes from any of you later though, about me crashing, this was your idea."

She flipped on the running lights and spot light and got as close to the ground as she dared. She made her way to the range and suddenly exclaimed, "Jesus!" but the chopper didn't lurch. He looked over her shoulder and saw the wreck Kirill made of the snipers nest. "How was he able to snipe from that…" she asked rhetorically knowing full well that he was an asset for a reason. As she set the chopper down and panned down the ladder and saw Kirill sitting at the base, not moving.

Jason, Paz, and Reina jumped out and Paz and Jason carried him to the chopper as Reina covered them and grabbed Kirill's rifle. As they loaded him in the chopper they could see breath coming in and out of his mouth and it looked like he had patched his wounds. Jason and Paz loosened his tourniquets for a minute so he wouldn't lose his legs.

Suddenly Paz yelled into the headset, "Nicky get us outta here! Their trying to lock in on us! They have a unit of some kind in the air. Someone ordered us to be shot down."

Jason pulled a device from his belt and flipped a toggle switch on it and activated the jammer. "Jamming the wireless communications..."

Nicky pulled pitch and reversed the chopper as she lifted off and banked wildly as they tried to fight the centrifugal force and slam the doors before someone flew out. She killed the lights just as they felt something rock them as it blew past them. "Shit! Hang on to something! Someone get up here, I need eyes… I think that was a missile. Reina can that thing jam missiles?"

"Good question grasshopper, I'll let you know in a minute after he fires again…" Reina bounded up to go to the front, "I'm the smallest…" she said already stepping over the control panel between the seats. Jason grabbed her Intel bag from the floor of the chopper and slung it over his shoulder in case they had to ditch.

Jason heard something that sounded like a swarm of insects and the chopper pitched to the right wildly and he felt them lurch downward and knew they weren't very far off the ground and heard something scrape the bottom of the hull, or he guessed in an aircraft it was a fuselage.

"Those are tree tops dearest…" Reina said in a level Aussie voice as she whipped her head in all directions looking for their attacker.

"Thank you, I didn't know you were a botanist," Nicky said waspishly.

"Goes to show that you can lead a whore to culture, get it horticulture?"

"…but you can't make her drink?"

"I've never had a problem there dearest. There! Four o'clock to port and above us… Shit, I think it's an Apache…" There was another insect noise as the Apache attack helicopter pilot fired his crafts mini-gun into the trees around them, seeing motion, but uncertain as to where in the dark.

Jason blurted, "Don't get between the house and him. The gun tracks on an osculating turret to where the pilot is looking."

"Thanks for the input," she snapped. "I am aware of the shadows on the cave wall and the capabilities of that aircraft. Why don't you do something useful, like shoot at it?"

Jason cocked an eyebrow at the cave wall comment to which Paz merely shrugged. Jason suddenly started looking around frantically and saw the sniper rifle and then he saw the Stinger missile crates. Paz saw them at the same time and they both frantically started unpacking one. Paz asked, "Can we fire one of these out of here?"

"We'd have to open both doors and fire straight across, or hang out of the chopper…"

Nicky piped in, "I'll need to gain altitude or you'll hit my rotor. Should I start now?"

As another burst of fire came at their chopper, this one coming within feet of them, all three said together, "Yes!"

Jason grabbed straps and threw some to Paz. He then hooked himself in and followed suit with Kirill as Paz did Magpie who was now awake and struggling. Paz opened one door and Jason the other, as the chopper banked and climbed Parsons yelled, "Port side in five seconds…"

Jason waited for the bank and it took him a second to find the chopper and he felt Nicky start to bank away as the chopper opened up. Jason fired without waiting for a missile lock and for a second a smile spread across his face as it went straight at the Apache, but it flew into the ammo stream from the mini gun that was mounted under the pilot seat and exploded in midair. He thought it was on outright miss until he saw the chopper bank wildly.

"Indirect hit, Nicky get us some distance. He is doing evasive maneuvers and isn't tracking us…"

Jason and Paz started opening another crate as she dove and headed under her adversary. She then pulled up and came up behind and higher than the other craft. Jason pointed the launcher and as soon as he heard the lock-on tone he fired. The missile streaked at the Apache but right before the rocket impacted he saw the main rotors blow off and spin away as the pilots pod ejected automatically in one piece, blowing both pilots past their own craft before the capsule deployed its chutes. The missile impacted and exploded, which for a moment lit up the forest in an eerie dancing light.

Nicky banked to the north and as the chopper made it over the ocean she descended to a nauseatingly low altitude as she skimmed over the dark water as the first predawn light started to show. Jason tried not to look out the window at the ocean and luckily Reina spoke up for all of them, "Nicky dear… if we go any lower they are going to pick us up on sonar…" She nodded and pulled up slightly.

Once they knew they were clear Reina took over for Nicky who wanted to examine Kirill, who never had regained consciousness. Jason had started an IV but they didn't have any blood or plasma. They made haste to their contact point, which was a British Military base. Kirill and Nicky were dispatched to the hospital, while the others were taken to the base commander's office.

Jason was surprised that no one tried to relieve them of their weapons. They were sent into the commander's office, but when they arrived, the commander quickly left his own office and closed the door behind him. Even from behind Bourne recognized Pamela Landy as she stood with her back to them, looking out the window. Bourne ushered Magpie to stand in front of them. She had been cut free and was handcuffed. Jason stared at the back of the high-backed executive chair and wondered for a moment if there was anyone in it.

Bourne saw Margret fidget and he started to turn around to see if there was anyone outside the office. He heard Paz nervously flipping his rifle back and forth from full auto to triple shot and Reina was examining her fingernails, something he had never seen her do. Suddenly the chair turned and they saw an older thin man there, he was in his mid sixties but Bourne could see the power and the intensity in his eyes. He was a killer, or had been. Everything about the man commanded his respect. Landy turned as well and her eyes bore into his, she was furious and with good reason. She wasn't supposed to be here, they had chosen to keep the CIA and the United States out of the picture this time. Nicky had mailed their plans to MI6, the British version of the CIA right after they arrived in England. Bourne wondered how Landy had gotten here in time.

"You are not Constance Lindbergh," the man stated rhetorically in a gravelly voice while looking at Reina, who shook her head.

"Sir, no sir… We had a wounded man. She is a physician and accompanied him to the hospital and should be here soon."

As he opened his mouth, the door opened and Nicky was ushered in. Jason saw that she was pale and sweating and realized that he had never asked if she was okay. She looked filthy from rolling around on the rooftop and from gunpowder and he was suddenly conscience of the dried gore that covered him and Paz. Reina was more or less clean besides having blood on her hands, literally. She stood at the end of the line and the three others kept staring at Nicky until the man finally asked, "Your man?"

"Oh, he is still alive. He has massive blood loss and might have suffered brain damage. Even if he survives surgery he might be brain dead. We won't know until he wakes up." The three others nodded grimly and returned their eyes to front and center.

"Sorry to hear that."

He was going to say more but Pam cut in, "Nicky are you okay?"

She looked ghostly pale and was covered in sweat, "I think I fractured my fibula, I'll be fine."

"Perhaps you should sit?" she said warmly.

"I rather stand," she said defiantly. Even though she wasn't in the military she was standing at attention as were the others whom had done it subconsciously.

"Your report Miss Lindbergh seems completely outrageous. If you weren't supposed to be dead I wouldn't believe a word of it."

"It's Mrs." she said causing a raised eyebrow from Landy. "I'm sorry that I missed the introductions… You are?"

"I'm Isaac Walker with MI6."

"I'm glad my package reached you sir," she said politely. "I know we've never met but I've heard a lot about you and knew you were above reproach."

"Yes," he said curtly shuffling through a stack of papers that couldn't have been in his hands for more than a few hours. "You're David Webb... Who are you two and your affiliations?"

Paz sighed and spoke with great reluctance, "My name now is Paz Carrasco and my birth name was Andrej Valenta. I was last affiliated with the Mossad but I was born in Peru. I specialized in demolitions."

"My name is Reina Tanaka. I was…" Nicky coughed knowing Reina was going to lie or say something insulting. "I was born Miriam Takahashi of her Royal Australian Navy. I was electronics warfare officer on a sub, a bubble head."

Paz scoffed, "Bubblehead? They turned you loose on a sub?"

"Miriam?" Nicky laughed.

"Bite me _Constance_…"

Walker coughed to bring attention, "You," he point to Magpie. "Do you know who I am?"

She nodded, "Yes. You're well known in intelligence circles."

"Your file says that you are working as a secretary to a museum curator on Jersey Island. These people are claiming that you are operating a covert training facility run by a curtain 'unnamed foreign power' and you are doing it on her majesty's soil?" She tried to speak but he continued talking, "Their brief also claims that you have taken subversive action against Queen and country up to and including the murder of British civilians including Simon Ross inside Waterloo Station and complicit in the death of James Walker."

"I heard about Ross, but I'm sorry but I don't know who that other person is…"

He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a picture frame and flung it at her feet where the glass shattered and covered her with glass. Everyone looked at the picture except for Nicky who kept her eyes stubbornly forward. It was of the MI6 man and a younger man, Bourne's mouth cracked for a split second in shock. It was the Professor. "My son, James Walker… you knew him as…" he looked at the file in his hand, "Professor Roy Hinkley…"

Bourne swallowed almost as hard as Magpie, Nicky hadn't shared that part of the plan with him. She could have vastly miscalculated here. A vengeful parent, whose son he had killed and the order had been given to him by Nicky, could be unpredictable. Paz had also been the one that killed a Ross at Waterloo. Nicky had told him that she had sent a brief to a friend in MI6 as they left London. Walker could lose it and have them all lined up and shot as spies.

"This is ridiculous…You have no proof." Margret insisted.

Paz suddenly spoke, "I was the one ordered to kill Simon Ross as well as Jason Bourne. I am willing to testify to those incidents."

Bourne followed him, "When I lost my memory, other assets were sent to kill me. Your son was the first one they sent, we were the two best. I killed your son in self defense sir. You have my deepest regrets, but I am also willing to testify."

Walker was clearly becoming incensed when Nicky spoke up as well, "I was the one that took the order to dispatch agents to kill Bourne. I sent James after Bourne."

Reina shrugged, "I cheat on my taxes…" she offered from the end of the line, "Actually I flat out haven't paid them for eight years. What?" she said to the glares. "I have nothing to confess about any of this… but I'm not letting you have all the fun without me. I have killed many others. We also have a wealth of intelligence and really have no idea what it all says. I will also offer to break the encryptions for you."

"I can explain…" Margret muttered.

"I'm sure you can. Later…" he rang a buzzer and a security detail came for her. He quickly jotted something down and handed it to one of his men who read it and nodded and then drug her from the room screaming about her innocence and was trying to explain Bourne's involvement before the door shut.

"Can you explain why I shouldn't send you all to join her?"

They all remained silent of a long moment until Jason spoke, "Because your son was one of us. We trained with him, fought with him, and bled with him. He was deceived as we were."

He said curtly, "Why should I believe that? How do I know that you really knew him, or that he was involved in any of this?"

Nicky said timidly, "I… shared time with your son. We were both professionals so we didn't allow ourselves to love each other, but I knew him well. He told me of his three sons and that it was the hardest thing he had ever done was to leave them, but he had confidence in you to look after them."

Reina muttered "Blimey, I didn't think any of us had kids…"

"He was one of the few."

He eyed her skeptically, "Prove it…"

She coughed, "Well he had a birth mark on his…"

"They said you were a doctor, you could have learned that professionally."

She thought, "Well he always clenched his feet and toes when he…" there was a pause, "ate. He said that he used to whistle in his sleep too."

"Okay, so what was he a Professor of?"

Nicky's voice had been shaking, but she couldn't help but smirk. "Women's studies," she said and the four assets and Agent Walker laughed to different degrees. "Yes, that certainly is my boy… So I am to believe my son to be a traitor then?"

"No, no sir. We were all being misled. We all thought that we were working in a joint effort by our governments, to subvert and attack foreign hostile attacks on our way of life." He looked skeptical so Nicky added, "After 9/11 it seemed quite plausible."

He nodded, "so who is behind all of this?"

Reina spoke up from the end of the line, "I have been slowly hacking systems and gleaning Intel for years and it seems to be a global conglomeration of people at different levels of government and industry that shape the world."

"I swear if you say the word lluminati…" he said scoffing.

"Well when you say it that way it does seem laughable. Think about it another way, during World War Two the governments and manufacturing industries the world over were united for a join cause. You honestly think none of them considered keeping it going after the war, to build money, power, and control? Eisenhower was in charge of all armies and then becomes President? Come on, it's not that farfetched. Think of the countries as a body and these assholes as the skeleton… They hold it together, put everything in motion, and give it shape but are under the surface, never to be seen."

Everyone was looking at her like she was crazy. "Look," she pointed at the bag of Intel, "it's all in there. I told you I was giving you my best guess. I'm betting that the answers to half the world's problems over the last fifty years are right there in that bag. Everyone I killed was a global leader, a business tycoon, or a rogue agent. Why? I was never sent to kill terrorists or an Iranian nuclear scientist or anything!"

Nicky nodded, "All the cases I handled were all people in power or whistle blowers…In addition I had a theory that all the assets were descended from heroes, prominent people or both. Maybe they were involved as well and we were Grandfathered in?" she mused.

Reina nodded, "Hirsch said he and my father served together, I assumed it was in the war…"

Bourne muttered, "…and when we built up enough trust they let us in of the secret?"

Landy cut in sharply, "Look, this is all fantasyland nonsense. Like she said," she pointed at Reina, "the answers are in there. Let's get to the facts."

Paz coughed somewhat nervously, "So, that leaves two questions. How do we proceed with the Intel, as in who do we trust? And in the short term, do the five of us have to shoot our way out of here?"

An hour later they had adjourned and been issued base passes and quarters and were sent to get cleaned up. Jason stood in the bathroom doorway looking at Nicky shower through the translucent door and mulled over the medley of memories of Nicky, trying to put them in order to try to figure out whether or not he had loved her before. Most of his memories lacked emotion, but he could have been suppressing them.

Finally, Jason gave up on figuring out what David Webb's opinion of Constance Lindbergh had been; he knew how Jason Bourne felt about Nicky Parsons now. He knocked lightly, even though he'd bet everything he owned that she not only knew he was there and was watching him back, but that she enjoyed being watched. "Mrs. Parsons, do you mind if I join you? I'm afraid to sit on anything like this…"

She opened the door enough to peak out and said innocently, "Oh, if that's why I don't mind putting my robe on and waiting?" He gave is best 'yeah right' smirk, she laughed, "What's the password?"

"Utopia," he offered flatly, self conscious of the gore on him from the neck up.

"Wh-what?" she stuttered, all emotion leaving her face.

He cocked his eyebrow and then his whole head, "You know Heaven?"

"Right…" she murmured. He knew he had touched on something that shocked her but all thoughts of that quickly followed all the evidence of their sins down the drain.

The four, or five if Kirill survived, assets were going to be individually debriefed. Reina was in the need of a shower the least and volunteered to go first, followed by Paz, then Nicky, saving Jason for last. Reina had suggested the order purposefully, as he and Nicky fell into the cool clean sheets he thanked her for her preplanning, figuring that she and Paz would soon follow suit.

Jason's back was a deep purple from the bullets his vest stopped, as was her calf. They took apart a floor lamp and used the pole to splint her leg along with athletic tape until she was done with her briefing.

Four hours later Paz knocked, waking them up. Nicky left for her meeting in fatigues that were furnished to her, to keep talk on the base down. Nicky didn't return for almost three hours, which Bourne had figured on. She had more operational knowledge than the others. When she returned she watched him dress and hugged him for a long time before he left. His debriefing was the longest at over four hours. Turns out that Landy had already come to England to try to intersect with them on the cruise ship but her flight had gotten there late and she had missed them.

When Bourne returned to the room he saw the large manila envelope on the bed and he knew why she had hugged him like she did. Nicky was gone. He sat on the corner of the bed and held the envelope in his hands for a full five minutes, rubbing its corners, feeling the texture, playing with the flap, he did everything but open it. He let out the world's deepest sigh and unfolded the metal flaps and pulled open the glued end and poured the contents on the bed.

He saw the watch he had given her and a letter on military stock paper and a stack of legal forms. He picked up the watch and looked at it for a long time and wondered where in her web gear she had stored it, as if that mattered. He knew what the forms were and saved them for last and read the letter first. His heart sank further at the opening words; it was just his name which was a bad sign.

_ David-_

_ We were so many things to each other and I can't for the life of me describe how I felt about you, nor do I truthfully know how you felt about me. We never let ourselves love each other. We couldn't afford to. But, what I can tell you is what I loved about you._

_ You were a thing of mastery and beauty; like a katana. You were hard, cold, unyielding, brilliant, deadly, sharp, unbreakable, and you were the absolute best. Nothing could touch you. You were this unstoppable juggernaut, this unyielding force of nature that no one could stop. And I loved you for it._

_ You are none of those things now. Now you're broken and just like a broken sword, I can put you back together the best I can, but you'll never be like you were before. I think it's a blessing that you have forgotten what you were, so you don't realize what you've become. I am not the kind of woman to piece you back together and remake you as I would want you to be, I loved you as you were. We were fire and ice. God, when we used to fight it was so glorious! I think we both instigated things half the time because we were so good at hating each other._

_ You never asked why I thought the watch you bought for me was a good metaphor for our relationship. Jason, it's fake. It's an antique fake, but a fake… Real Rolexes don't tick and the second hand should move fluidly over the face… Nothing about us before was real. I loved it and it will always be precious to me, but it wasn't made to last._

_ I just want to put all of this behind me. You promised me that you would let me go, so please keep your promise. Please don't look for me, I guarantee that I have taken great pains to ensure you can't find me. The harder you look, the further away you will get. _

_ I know this letter is honest to the point of being cruel, that's why I am too cowardly to say it to your face. Please don't think ill of me, I know this is for the best for us all. _

_ -Constance _

He read the letter twice and then picked up the stack of papers to confirm that they were divorce papers, for two people that never really existed, which they were.

He gleaned a few things from the packet; first she had signed the divorce papers with a shaky hand. Second was what wasn't it the packet, his necklace which had served as her secret wedding band. Third was her referring to the watch as though she was always going to have it; sure she could have been intending to keep it and then changed her mind, but he doubted it. Fourth, she wrote the letter today off of the stationary in the room, which hopefully meant that she hadn't analyzed every line for Freudian slips. She also wrote it with only one draft or she took the balled up failures with her. The fifth thing was the most important; she had used their real names even after agreeing to use their new ones.

He felt like the letter was her more trying to convince herself than him, but the '_The harder you look, the further away you will get.' _Line puzzled him the most. That was the only thing that kept him on the base and not setting off for her immediately. It was almost as though she wanted to be found, but not looked for?

He found out rather easily that she reappropriated their chopper and flown it to Cherbourg, France. He half expected that she snuck back onto the base thinking that he would chase her immediately.

For months he tried to let it go. He had gone to Brazil and was holed up in a hotel with a bed, a cracked mirror and a broken TV. He had run for awhile and then simply gotten bored and now he didn't care if they came for him, at least then he would have purpose. In frustration one night he threw down the letter, after once again looking at it for clues, and pulled out his leather bound copy of the Art of War that she had purchased for him and started to read it for the first time. He guessed she had inscribed it as soon as she bought it, before he had abducted her and tied her up in New York. It read:

Jason-

_Yesterday is but today's memory, _

_but tomorrow is today's dream._

-Khalil Gibran

Sweet dreams… -Nicky.

The enormity of the quote hit him like a brick. He had been running and dwelling on the past for so long that he didn't have anything else. Even now he was clinging to her letter like a life raft. He had enough of sitting around. He was going to look to the past one more time by going home to Missouri. He would explore what future his family might hold and was going to try to build a life somewhere and forget the past.


	24. Chapter 24: Combined Epilogue

Chapter 24

One month later

Nixa, Missouri

Michael Webb had been working on the VW campervan all day. Nicky had left it with them years ago; after she gave birth she flew out of Missouri. It was cold out, but at least it was dry and he had to foresight to open the barn a few hours beforehand so it could warm up a bit. It was still difficult to break the bolts loose but he was done with everything but the brakes which he was just finishing. He had put off the repairs for a long time and it just wasn't safe to drive anymore.

He heard the slow reluctant grating of the gravel on the driveway as someone approached dragging their feet, "I'm glad you're here you; you can help me bleed the brakes…"

"I'm sorry, but you have me mistaken…" a familiar voice said.

"Nope, I would know that reluctant foot dragging anywhere Jason, or did you forget how to bleed brakes too?"

Jason eased into the jacked up van and pumped the brakes. He was processing being addressed as Jason and not David by whom he assumed was his brother by the voice. "So, you know everything?"

"Yup," he heard his own voice only with a Missouri accent. "Avery and I figured out the signals you had been sending us for years, that you were alive. Nicky Parsons showed up five years ago and filled in the rest. She didn't know that we figured out that you were alive and she didn't want Ma to have a heart attack whenever you decided to reappear."

"Okay… well that was good planning on her part. She was a logistics officer."

His brother slid out from under the van and put the wheels on. "Is that what you call it, Logistics?" he asked accusatorily.

Jason found it odd to be looking at what was essentially himself, "So, she told you everything?"

"I assume so yeah. You're James Bond and all that…" he could tell his brother was still very much put off and Jason kept waiting on him to yell at him. He got up and walked to a sink and stripped his coveralls off and rubbed degreaser all over his hands and arms before washing and drying them. He glared at his watch as he realized how late it was. He turned finally and hugged his brother for a long time. "You know I'm really pissed at you…"

"I know you have the right to be…"

"Just like you to show up once I'm finished, I've been out here all damn day… I missed you bro…"

"I know… I wish I had missed you too."

Michael pointed to a lime green Barracuda that was also in the barn, "come on, and let's drive up to the house. I need to start dinner or four women are going to cannibalize us. He got in the passenger seat, "You mind driving; I don't want to get grease all over it.

Jason slid behind the wheel and shut the door; seat and the mirror were all adjusted properly as they were the same size. As he looked in the mirror and a litany of images poured out. He remember counting out his hard earn dollars to buy the car, drag racing and getting pulled over, have sex with his high school girlfriend, Veronica, in the back seat.

"This… is… my car," he said slowly.

"Yeah, go ahead and pull her up to the house. Really, I am late with dinner and I am totally going to blame you," he laughed.

Jason forced a chuckle as he drove down the long gravel driveway to the house. "Four women: Ma, Avery and Veronica?" he said questioningly.

"Nah, Avery is in her last semester of college. Unfortunately you just missed her by a few days; she was here for the winter break. Ma's still alive and kicking though. I ended up landing Veronica and then there are our two daughters."

"Congratulations Michael! So, Nicky was just your surrogate?" he said in a stinging but questioning tone.

Michael swallowed hard and looked at Jason nervously.

"I saw the photo album in one of the girl's rooms… The front door is wide open. So, there are pictures of me and Nicky in there while she was pregnant with my daughter? Are my memories more scrambled than I thought? Wouldn't that have been after I was shot?" he said clearly knowing the answer already.

Michael laughed and gave a raspy cough at the end, "No. That's me."

"So, you and Nicky…" Jason looked at his brother with jealousy in his eyes, something he had never seen from his brother. He never fell for anyone, ever.

"Oh, no… No, not at all… She used me as a stand in. She figured you might want pictures later and you and I are identical, or we were. She thought it might be the only way anyone would ever see you together."

"…and by anyone you mean our daughter?" to which Michael shrugged.

There were differences in the two men now, Jason was far more muscular and obviously had more scars. Michael's nose was crooked and he had a large scar on his left arm like he had been impaled on something; Jason had seen it clearly in several of the pictures. The main difference was that Jason looked older, all the stress and wear and tear had taken their toll and he looked closer to forty where his brother could pass as under thirty.

"That was a good idea…"

"Yeah… I thought so."

"Let me guess, she listed you as the father on the birth certificate?"

"Well, yeah she said it would make it easier legally for us and help keep us off the CIA's radar."

"Yes, but that's not why she did it. She has pictures of you and her, while she was pregnant, you signed the birth certificate, and our DNA is identical. She took away every legal avenue I have to get custody…."

Michael cocked his head, "Shit…"

"Yeah, she's good. She locked me out… Legally I can't prove you're not the father, so even if I wanted to make a life for ourselves without her, I can't do it without her pulling the rug out from underneath me."

"Shit man, I had no idea… I'd never hamstring you like that," he said honestly.

"I know you wouldn't. She is just too smart for her own good."

"Look, I love you bro but I don't think you should say anything about Nicky or the pregnancy when they come home."

"Why?" he said clearly confused.

He sighed, "Nicky was very… explicit… about what her feelings would be if you came here searching her. She gave us a detailed list to follow, as far as actions to take under different circumstances. It won't help your case with her bro."

Jason scoffed angrily, "She made her feelings clear already." He pulled out the letter and handed it to him.

"Wow, what a bitch! Are you sure she meant all of that?"

"I don't care anymore. I am just passing through to see you all. There are some other thing's I need to take care of in the States…"

"Right… logistically?"

Jason nodded.

"She was explicit about that too. We're supposed to talk sense into you and keep you on the straight and narrow…"

Jason gave him the evil eye.

"Hey, man I am just the messenger. She said that you were a 'cancer that was bent on self destruction' and she couldn't watch anymore."

"She doesn't have to. Thanks, I think I'll take the advice," he said as he got out of the Barracuda.

"Hey, Jason you didn't see the album in Ma's room did you?"

"No…"

"Well, come here I have something to show you. I think this might be a surprise…"

"Great, I love surprises…" he muttered.

1 Week Later

Langley, Virginia

CIA headquarters, 3rd Sub-Basement

Dr Albert Hirsch had been shown the newspaper that reported his own death via massive heart attack on Riker's Island in New York. He still laughed every time he thought about it, how he had become a victim in his own maze of deception. The CIA interrogators now had all the time in the world to get information out of him, all off the record and no one knew he was alive so they could torture him with impunity.

Hirsch was amused by their amateurish interrogation techniques. He had of course written the definitive work on the subject and it was rare that he didn't see their next move coming a mile away. They had placed him in 'black out' for a month. Whenever they weren't interrogating him he was kept in a cell with no absolutely no light. They probably thought it was having an effect on him but in reality he spent all his time thinking about the books that he could write if he were to ever make it out of here. He knew he would never leave though. Either an asset would come for him, or he would die of natural causes, or they would leave him down here to rot.

He figured it was the middle of the night based of his last meal and so he was actually surprised by the door opening. A figure in a lab coat entered and the door closed behind him, casting them back into darkness.

The man turned on a flashlight, causing eerie shadows to dance over the room, Hirsch recognized Jason Bourne immediately despite his simple disguise. He was dressed like a doctor and had shaved his head into a horseshoe pattern and grown a goatee, both of which were gray.

"We don't have much time," he said curtly looking at his watch.

"Well I certainly didn't see this tactic coming."

Bourne screwed up his face, "I am not here for the CIA! You know me well enough to know I'll never work for them again."

"Quite right, just as I know that you didn't come here to help me even though I loved you like a son."

"I'm sure you did. I need answers and we both know you won't crack in here. We also know it's only a matter of time before an asset gets to you…"

"Why should I tell you anything?"

"Ego and creature comforts," he said as he held up a bag.

"Ego…?"

"Yeah, ego… you're going to die down here without your life's work being known, published, or fully realized."

Hirsch laughed heartily, "You being here, despite you're loving fans, is realization enough. I am actually impressed, something not easily done Jason. Even for an asset this is impressive. Getting this deep into a highly restricted area in CIA headquarters, sounds like the making of a good book." He sniffed the air, "Is that a cheese steak?"

Jason nodded, "It's reheated, but I brought it from Philly."

"I now have a new level of hatred for you as well Mr. Bourne. I may answer some questions; it depends on how interesting I find them."

"Utopia…" he said simply.

All emotion and blood drained from Hirsch's face, before returning in a flush of his cheeks and a grin worthy of the Cheshire cat. He roared with laughter before Bourne motioned him to keep it down. "Now I _am_ impressed. How did you come to learn of Utopia and how much do you know, no need to waste time on what you have already learned?"

"Little more than the name and that everyone's face goes pale when I say the word…"

"Everyone…?"

Jason knew he trying to manipulate information out of him but didn't care, "Parsons and Magpie…"

"So, Parsons survived your latest shenanigans? Girl's got more pluck than I gave her credit for, you should have gotten her killed by now. But, really…Magpie…? How disappointing that she allowed herself to be found…" Jason tossed him a small velvet bag, "What is this Jason?" he asked as he peered in it.

"It's Margret's teeth. I thought you might want proof…"

"Well I am certainly glad you didn't take me into custody," he laughed.

"Reina actually, she thought she might have a cyanide tooth."

"Hmm, I heard Ms. Tanaka was dead. When did they take the intelligence out of the CIA?" He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and motioned for the sandwich. "I'll tell you all about Utopia. You've done well to have even learned the name…"

Jason handed him the bag and let him take a bite, "Wow, I will never tire of that taste…" He paused for a moment and Bourne knew to stay silent, he was composing his thoughts.

"You know of Project Paperclip?"

"Yes, the thousands of Nazi scientists we captured and enslaved to work on government programs like the space program…"

"Yes but there were other programs too. We were interested in yoking more than just the Nazi's scientific achievements." He took another bite of the sandwich. "Like the medical programs for instance. Do you know that virtually everything we know about the treatment of frostbite and hyperthermia we learned from Nazi experiments on captured Russian soldiers?"

Jason nodded, "I had heard that."

"Well, you didn't hear about the other doctors. The research we took on genetics, contagion, and bio weapons are still being used today. Then there were the other 'doctors', such as Josef Mengele. The wealth of knowledge he provided to us…"

"He wasn't captured; he died in Brazil in the '70s…"

Another round of laughter issued forth from Hirsch and Jason absently wondered if dear Albert had lost his mind. "Did he now? How do you think he stayed one step ahead of the Mossad Nazi hunters all of those years, three decades in fact?"

"He was working with us…"

"'Us' as in the program Jason, not the United States… Did you know that the village where he lived still boasts a birth rate of twin children at 1 in 5 births? Everywhere else it's around 1 out of 50. Curious isn't it?" He said slyly, "It must be something in the water… Did you know Nicolette was a twin as well, her sister was stillborn? As was Tanaka, her sister died of SIDS…"

"So, what we were bred?" he reared his head back and scowled in questioning disbelief.

"…like cattle my dear boy. I worked very hard to make you and Miss Parsons like each other. She was originally promised to someone else…"

"The Apple scientist, right…?"

Hirsch slapped his knee hard, "Yes, excellent. He was the sole survivor from the Green Lake program. He was formerly Col. Eric Byer, US Air Force. He was a brilliant specimen, but the drugs we gave his program were still being tested, they backfired and his physical and mental abilities regressed. After that I forbad my people be used as guinpigs and they turned to Army cast offs. Once you went off the grid I gave Nicky to Byer again..."

"What do you mean you 'gave her', she isn't property."

"Fine, I gave him permission to court her, which he did but nothing came of it. Later we found out that the drugs sterilized him as well. He was… quite upset."

Bourne shook his head, "So, you're saying we are all like the Boys from Brazil?"

"Exactly, you were bred to be of superior genetic stock and the mothers were given drugs to assist with the birth rate. It really was a brilliant program. Everything is all genetic sequencing and cloning now, no one has time for old fashion breeding anymore… pity. Your sons were destined to be Gods, the fourth generation of betterment."

"And if they were girls? What then, throw them out with the bath water?" he said disgusted.

He smiled, "No, a simple calendar can help increase the likelihood of a preselected gender by seventy percent."

"Wait, Nicky said we were all fixed…"

He looked appalled, "Heavens no. I lied to her; I saw early on she was of the pigheaded variety that would refuse to breed. It was time consuming trying to keep her separated during ovulation though. Some of the others were sterilized though, like Castel whom showed certain…defects."

"So, you're just looking to build the master race? You really believe all of that white power…"

Hirsch shouted, "No, you idiot boy. Genetics! Pure, refined, harnessed, and altered to be the pinnacle of the human race! I could give a damn less about skin color. This was about the creation of a supreme being! Your physical refinements with Lindbergh's intellect and intuitiveness could unlock the key to another step of human evolution! Others felt that their cloning experiments with your DNA would produce those results, but I feel that something is lost without the humanity of child birth…"

"Wait! What? Did you just say we were being cloned?"

"Yes Jason! The first class is around six years old. The preliminary results are very promising… Not only that but both of your chromosomes are being used to resequence the DNA of assets currently in service. The results are quite remarkable," he stopped speaking abruptly because it looked as though Bourne were going to start pummeling him.

"Where? Where are they?!"

"My dear boy, if you don't think that the children were moved the moment I was arrested…"

"Okay… okay," Jason hurried as he looked at his watch. He was running out of time. "So, Utopia is the cloning lab?"

"Oh, no… not at all… I'm sorry I digressed, but Utopia wasn't my project so I am not really fully…"

"Okay, okay… so what is it and what do you know?"

"Utopia is the nickname originally given to a place where both medical branches operated," Jason started to interrupt, "don't ask… it moves. It is the purpose of the place to which the name applies. It started as the medical equivalent of Paperclip and now days is used for experimentation into bionics, cryogenic freezing, radical medical… procedures,"

"Like what?"

"Things like replacement of the spine, switching of brains, repairing the optic nerve, wet wiring the brain with electronics… things like that. Areas that could be greatly advanced through the use of human experimentation…"

"That's all crap…"

"Sounds like it now. But, human testing will make those things reality sooner rather than later. The artificial heart was first tested in that program. Human trials give much faster results. Do you know who invented the artificial heart?" Jason shook his head and shrugged in a perturbed manner. "Charles Lindbergh…"

"What?" he said in disbelief.

"It's true… Look it up."

"So, why do people lose it over the name Utopia?"

"Because the cloning and medical programs grew so large that they were split up, medical kept the name Utopia and the cloning is now Project Corn Rows; they were all the rage at the time, get it… the perfect '10' with Bo Derek and how the rows of children..." Jason nodded in exasperation. "Well Utopia is barbarism at its peak; it is truly a level of hell. The things they do to those poor people… Imagine an animal like Castel as a doctor with free reign over his patients…"

"You say it as though you aren't responsible…"

"I'm not Jason, that isn't my program. I was on Treadstone which was to use the finished product of the other programs and hone it to a keen edge," he said gravely. "Despite what you may think of me, I am no monster." He swallowed with difficulty, "I did have to feed the beast however…"

"What?"

"Those that failed out of the Behavioral and training programs…"

"Fuck! The subjects are unwilling?"

"Of course, those animals have no time for volunteers…" he laughed.

Everything started clicking together in his head, "You sent Nicky there!" he grabbed him by the throat.

"Yes, I…"

Jason hit him three times on the chin in rapid succession without intending to, his last punch was one of the most powerful he could remember dealing but the old man took it. "What did they do to her!" he screamed as he squeezed his throat.

"I didn't…" Jason hit him again. "You don't under…" he hit him again and this time Jason saw his eyes roll backward for a second and feared that he had knocked him out. "You don't understand," he laughed. "They didn't do anything _to_ her son…"

Jason let go of his throat and staggered backwards a step, "What?" his eyes narrowing.

"She wasn't a patient Jason…"

"You're lying…"

"Ask her then. They gave her a choice: on the table, or over it. She wisely chose the latter."

"They did all of that because I screwed up somehow?"

He screwed his face up, "Heavens no. That was mere coincidence, unfortunately. Miss Parsons snuck into town a few days prior and called home, she didn't say anything to her mother but that was all it took. Her mother and sister had unfortunately become involved. Others thought Parsons should have been liquidated as a liability but I unwisely came to her defense."

"So, what… they killed them both?"

"No," he said remorsefully. "They presented that poor girl; she was nineteen at the time, with a choice. Run their 'experiments' and they wouldn't kill them both."

"Let me guess. They phrased it as you just did… _they_ wouldn't _kill_ them _both_…"

The man nodded sadly, "Very good Jason. When one makes a deal with the devil: always read the fine print. They made her do truly heinous things for weeks, all day and all night with very little sleep. At some point she snapped and had a Psychotic Break and regressed to animalistic primal state. At the end they made her choose one last patient: either her mother or her sister. She refused. They said they would kill all three of them and she still refused."

"So, how did they make her do it?" Jason asked, not really wanting to know the answer but knowing he had to hear it.

"They said that they would get _you_ to do it: first her mother, then her sister... as she watched. Then they would make you do it to her." Jason looked completely aghast. "You see they would have done the same thing to you, forced you too. I may have done bad things, or even be a bad person, but I am _not_ evil! I am not a monster such as them! I was once very much like you Jason; but I fear that I have stood in the shadow of the devil for too long."

"She chose her mother?"

"Yes. They didn't kill her little sister, but what they had neglected to tell Nicky was that they forced her sister to watch the whole time. Watch as her supposedly deceased sister tortured people for weeks and then finally their own mother."

"Jesus…"

"Yes. The girl went quite mad. While her mother was being butchered, the poor girl clawed her own eyes out to keep from watching. She just kept screaming and screaming for weeks after that. They ended up lobotomizing her and sent her to Bellevue."

Jason paced the length of the room twice, "Where is she?"

He looked at Bourne incredulously, "How could I possible know."

"You're the best psychiatrist in the world. You know how she thinks, where she would go, what she would do… I would find her eventually, but you could save me some time."

"Why should I help you?"

"…you did want us to mate."

He roared with laughter, "Well played sir! However would you permit me to ask you a question?"

"It depends on how interesting I find it," he countered with the Doctors own words.

"Why did you not take her with you in Berlin, at the train station? I suggested Abbot collect her knowing she would try to go to you. I was secretly hoping that you would take her with you then."

"I left her because… I really was going to blow her head off. I was sure she was lying; I guess I was getting mixed signals because of everything else. The only thing that saved her was her begging triggered a flashback, of Nitsky's wife begging for her life before I shot her."

"Ah… That makes sense."

"So, she knew you sent her?"

"Heaven's no. It's her nature. She's a psychiatrist too and an ex-lover. I knew she could not only help you with your past, but also with your future. I was hoping she might be able to bring you in from the cold, or at least help you get closer."

"So, you kicked her back into play again by assigning her to Spain later?"

He laughed, "No, but I was going to! Neil Daniels heard her name come up somewhere; they were trying to figure out what to do with her after Berlin. You see, she was a rose that came with a great many thorns. He and I were of the handful of people that knew she was trained as an asset. He recruited her to be on his team so that he could yoke her strength. It was shear ambition on his part. On her part, I believed that she was hoping that either you would seek out Daniels one day, or that Daniels would be on the next task force to come after you."

Jason nodded, as he saw the pieces falling together. "So, where is she?"

"Well let's see… I think she is guilt ridden and welcomes death, so I believe she is just hiding from you and not those seeking to kill her."

"Okay…"

"So, she would think that you wouldn't look in the basic starting points where novices would run to, knowing that she is too smart to do something so utterly stupid."

"Backward psychology, sounds like her…"

"So, stick with what she loves. I would start with Manhattan and Paris, then France entirely; Bordeaux especially as she spent a whole summer there once." Jason nodded, "Her guilt would lead her to do some job or task she sees as punishment. She would be waiting tables, cooking, doing volunteer work, but nothing at a hospital. Maybe a public school teacher or some sort of protective child services role. She abhorred religion, so maybe volunteering at a church doing something labor intensive, working the soup line or some such waste of talent."

"Okay…"

"She lived alone her whole life but I think she would do the opposite, she doesn't want to make it _too_ easy to be found. So she would have a lot of roommates or live in some sort of close knit community or hostel, but she would be known as a loner and wouldn't fit in. She would also shun designer clothing and the spa treatments that she loves so much and live in poverty out of some sort of misguided punishment. That's the best I can do for you."

"Thank you," he said sincerely. He cleared his throat, "I have a pill for you… a way out. Now or never," he held it up. The doctor raised an eyebrow, "… massive heart attack."

The Doctor took the pill and swallowed it. Jason waited a few minutes for it to take effect and as Hirsch was taking his last gasps Jason considered for a moment telling him about her pregnancy but he knew better then to utter anything of the sort.

Hirsch let out a gasping laugh, "… sorry…I…failed…you…_son_," he said as his eyes unfocused and he lost bladder control.

"Wait, what?" Jason grabbed his cheeks and shook his head, but he was gone. Jason started to leave, but then quickly knelt over the body. He tugged out a few pieces of hair and placed them carefully in his pocket. He had no idea if he was speaking literally, biologically, or metaphorically, but with DNA he would know.

He opened the door and left. Bourne was out of the room sixty seconds before Hirsch stood up and stuck the pill he had palmed into his pocket and opened the door. Bourne hadn't bothered to lock it behind him. He whispered, "Idiot…" before proceeding down the hall in search of a change of clothes."I can't die now, there's work to do…"

Jason had underestimated him and forgotten that he had been an asset and had skills of his own. He could still hold his breath for obscene periods of time and could slow his heart rate; he practiced playing dead every night before he went to sleep. But urinating had been the real selling point. Pissing himself had sold Bourne on not checking for a pulse, a critical error as had been not locking the door when he left because he was distracted by a ton of sentimental rubbish.

He located the office of his chief tormentor and pulled the capsule apart and dumped the drug into the empty coffee mug on the man's desk, which was thankfully white as was the powder.

He found some scrubs and shoes and a doctors lab coat. The clothes were tight on him but the lab coat was voluminous enough. He knew getting out of the building would be a breeze, getting in was difficult. It was how he would get away from the facility that would be the hard part. Either he would have to steal a car or risk walking away, but either way at least he had something to do.

One year later

Bordeaux, France

The woman formerly known as Nicolette Parsons sat in quiet meditation inside the private garden at the center of an ancient catholic church in Bordeaux. The church was a small ruin and had little that would interest sightseers and hence had few very visitors. The garden was off limits to almost everyone and only a special few were afforded entrance. As a substantial benefactor she was granted such access, although due to her position in the hierarchy she tried to only take advantage when no one else was around. The church and garden were tended to by Nuns and Novitiates that lived nearby; Novitiates were women going the process of becoming nuns. Most of women had gone to town to shop or spend time doing normal things, which afforded Nicky this quiet time.

She sat in the grass with her legs tucked under her plain handmade white dress, she had made it herself so it was very simple and somewhat uneven. Her hair was getting long again but was held in a tight bun under her miniature white habit, which was little more than a scarf. As a Novitiate she wasn't required to dress as she did, but preferred it. She hadn't met the time requirement to take her final vows to become a nun, but the time was drawing close. Her mother superior must believe her to a serious and devoted candidate first though; she wasn't permitted to take her vows without her approval. Nicky was trying hard as she did with everything in life, but the harder she tried the more her Superior disapproved. She had correctly realized that Nicky was there as some sort of self punishment, which wasn't unusual but usually those people didn't last this long.

Nicky didn't hear the side gate open, so when she felt a presence behind her she figured they had finally found her. She knew this was the first time she had been alone in months. It was time and she had prepared herself; she wasn't afraid. [In the chest; please make it painless…] she murmured before starting to give last rights to herself.

A small voice to her right asked tentatively, [Pardon? I'm looking for my mama…]

Nicky opened her eyes and was surprised at how close the little girl had gotten, she was right at her elbow.

[I haven't seen anyone. Do you need help finding her?] The girl was in her Sunday best, wearing a little sailor looking dress which was white with navy blue trim and a tiny white beret and looked adorable. She couldn't have been more than five years old.

From behind her a pouty and insistent voice said, [But they promised and promised us she would be here!] Nicky spun her head more and saw a second little girl, identical to the first, only her dress was a negative image of the other; it was navy blue with white trim and a navy blue beret. [Are you her? Are you Nicolette?]

The first girl blurted in English, "Yes are you Nicolette?!"

Nicky felt her mouth move but no sound came out, but a river of tears came as she looked them over. They still had Jason's perfect blue eyes and her little nose. The one in blue had dirty hands and a small smudge on her cheek.

[French, remember… she speaks French…] corrected the navy blue one.

"I speak English too…" Nicky finally managed. She looked at the girl in white, "You are Heidi and she is Abigail?" They both gapped at her before throwing themselves at her and talking a mile a minute, each in a different language.

"Shh…" Nicky soothed as she hugged them. "Let's enjoy this for a moment…"

After a long time Abigail asked timidly, "How could you tell us apart, no one can tell us apart?" she asked suspiciously. Nicky reluctantly pulled back from them and saw that they had tears in their eyes too.

Heidi answered in a very prim and proper tone, suddenly with an English accent, "Because you're _dirty_! You're always dirty. That's why you're the one in the _blue_ dress!" she said it stingingly, as if it were a curse and moved closer to Nicky who was also in a white dress.

Abigail clearly looked ashamed and embarrassed. Nicky beamed at her, "If I had pretty blue eyes like yours I would wear blue every day, it makes them stand out! Wait… why can you speak French?"

They both beamed and answered at the same time, "Because you live in France, so we had to learn French!" She could tell that they were both eager for her approval.

"Well thank you! You both must be really smart like me…" They both nodded eagerly and both started rapidly speaking at the same time and each was speaking both in French with English intermixed where they didn't know words. "Whoa, slow down you two. Gosh you're so big now…" she wiped her tears away. "Who are you here with?"

[Everyone I think?] Abigail said simply, while Heidi went into a long list. Jason's whole family was apparently here including some people she didn't know.

"They are all here now; they came with you to the church?"

"Oh, no just papa and auntie Avery… The others said we gave them migraines on the plane and went to take naps," she said skeptically.

"…did not. I saw Uncle Michael looking up a pub on the GPS," Heidi retorted.

Nicky laughed so hard she snorted, making them both giggle, "Well, sometimes beer helps get rid of headaches." They both narrowed their eyes to slits, in little imitations of her, eyeing her skeptically. "Come on, show me where they are. I need to have a talk with Papa…" the two exchanged worried looks at the sudden change in her voice.

Nicky found Jason and Avery just past the garden gate talking quietly. Seeing them Avery hopped up and hurried over to Nicky and hugged her as she whispered, "The girls made him find you, don't be mad. _Please_ think before saying anything, the past year has been _really_ hard on him… He's remembered a lot of awful things."

"Okay…" Nicky murmured.

"I love you sis… Take care…" Nicky had forgotten that everyone thought, well… that she was actually married to Jason.

Avery turned to the twins, "Come on girls, you want an ice cream?"

"No! Nicolette likes Parisian cafés!" one stamped her foot while pulling on Nicky.

"A café please, we want a cup of chino …" offered the other.

Avery laughed, "It's a cappuccino," and she spelled it for them. "It's Italian, we'll teach you that next week," they both nodded vigorously. "We can do that, I'd love some…"

"Avery!" Jason blurted as if she were offering them dynamite.

"There's nothing wrong with a little cappuccino bro!" she winked. The twins nodded vigorously. "Come on girls, let's _do_ this!"

"Aren't you coming? Yeah, aren't you?" they asked Nicky with huge eyes.

"I want to talk to him for a few minutes and I need to change. I promise we will spend a lot of time together… Now go with Avery and be good, you don't want to be in trouble on vacation. We'll catch up to you in an hour or so, I promise…"

Nicky watched as they drove away, Jason standing quietly behind her. Only after their car could no longer be seen did she turn around. Jason could honestly say he couldn't remember ever seeing anyone so angry. Her face was scarlet red and he felt like he could see every vein in her face throbbing. She was pursing her lips so hard it looked like they had been surgically removed; she strode past him without saying anything. She briefly took his hand and pulled it and he could feel her trembling in anger, she then let it go, he knew it had been an indication that she wanted him to follow her.

She walked around the back of the old church and up the hill following a well worn path to the nunnery and modern church a quarter of a mile away. A few hundred feet up she veered off the path to the right, to a corpse of trees and bushes. It had a small clearing in the middle and his heart started beating fast. He had spent almost three days in that little clearing, staking the place out. Had he been careless and left something behind, or had she seen him there? It was the only place within a mile that was out of the line of site and he suddenly wondered if she were armed or if she had weapons hidden there?

Once they were in the clearing she suddenly rounded on him and her hands shot up to his face and he halfway blocked her out of reflex. She pressed her hands to his cheeks and she was suddenly kissing him feverishly. Just as he came out of shock and started to kiss back she hooked a leg behind his knee and rammed her body into his as hard as she could. He fell backward hard on to the pine thistle. They butted heads slightly before she pulled her miniature habit off and Jason reached up and pulled her hair down, although he knew she preferred it out of her face normally, he just had to smell it. Then they were kissing again and she was pulling at his belt. He jerked his sweater over his head but left the undershirt on. She lifted and yanked his jeans down around his thighs as he pulled her dress up and grabbed her panties, "rip them…" she murmured her approval, knowing that was what he was planning on. He grabbed one side in both hands and ripped them and yanked the other side down.

He felt her starting to settle on him and he whispered, "Your vows?"

She paused and shook her head rapidly, "No, not yet…" He opened his mouth again and she blurted, "Shut up, just shut up! I am at DEFCON 1 here…" DEFCON was a military crisis severity rating 5 being normal and 1 being all out nuclear war. He stared at her curiously, "…you haven't remembered that yet…" she panted and tucked her hair behind her ears."It's what you used to call it." She opened her eyes, which had been squeezed closed the whole time they were in the clearing. "You made the mistake of telling me about your 'Nicky's-pissed-o-meter'… anything over DEFCON 3 and I was totally irrational and that each orgasm brought me down a notch…" That being all the permission he needed, he grabbed her tightly and rolled them over. "So, according to the Bourne Jerk-o-meter you owe me…"

"Shut it Parsons…" he murmured as he plunged into her and was rewarded with seeing her go slightly cross-eyed before squeezing her eyes shut again. As he ground against her she buried her face in his neck and he could feel her cold nose pressed against his hot skin. It was cool out today, but not enough to deter them. He wisely took his own advice and kept his mouth shut as he worked.

After thirty minutes she was down to DEFCON 3 and she pressed a finger to his lips and pointed at his shoes and jeans that he was still entrenched in. She walked over a few feet and reached down and felt around until she found the edge of a piece of ply board buried there under a few inches of dirt and leaves. There were two dirty and damp trash bags underneath, she had hidden things here. She reached into one and pulled out the only thing it contained, a sleeping bag. She tossed it to him and he quickly unrolled it as she took a camping backpack out of the other and dug around in it and came back with two bottles of water and a hair tie. She handed him a bottle that he drained and she rinsed the dirt off her hands with hers before drinking. They both climbed into the sleeping bag and he zipped it up and they immediately resumed their activities and a moment later he was in her again but moving at an agonizingly slow speed, which he remember drove her crazy, as in irked. If sexual aggression was equated to music, Nicky Parson would be Speed Metal. He was trying to draw her out and it was working.

"I'm so furious at you…"

He made motions in sign language causing her to laugh, "I never learned, but you were right to keep your mouth shut still… Did you go looking for them?"

He looked sad and shook his head no.

"So, you went to see your family?"

He nodded and was reward with another laugh.

"Did one of them tell you?"

He shook his head no, he motioned snapping a picture. "You saw a Photo album?" He nodded.

"Did they show it to you?" He motioned like he was picking a lock and traced her c-section scar. "You broke into your mom's house?"

He nodded as he slid down her body and her laughter turned into a moan. "I was tired of charades anyway," she panted. A short time later, shorter than she would've preferred, he reappeared panting and covered in sweat, it was hot and suffocating in the bottom of the sleeping bag. She unzipped the sleeping bag and opened it fully.

"So, you obviously went looking me?" He shook his head no and shrugged. "You can speak now…"

"The twins made me do it." She laughed and he reiterated, "I'm glad you're amused by the biological terrors we created…"

Nicky narrowed her eyes, "you jerk; they're _adorable_!"

He laughed so hard and so deeply that she couldn't be mad, "What's your policy for negotiating with known terrorists?" She had never seen him belly laugh like that.

"Why? What did they do?"

"Do you ever check your email?"

"No. I haven't touched a computer or TV in a year."

He gawked at her for a minute, "Well this is a long and epic tale that deserves your undivided attention, we should wrap this up?" She nodded they eagerly went at it again, each trying to make the other orgasm first, Jason won this time but it was by a nose.

Jason explained the misadventures of 'the Wonder Twins' as they dressed; Nicky was putting on normal clothes from her pack. "Okay, so right after we were done with Treadstone and Jersey Island I bounced around a lot making sure I wasn't followed. During that time, before I showed up at my mom's house, one of them used a diversion so the other could sneak out the mail box and was able to talk the carrier out of a stamp for a letter. Guess who it was to?"

"Me?" she asked hopefully.

"No, they mailed a letter to the President of the United States…"

"Oh, God…" she held her head in her hands, "I take it they got a response…"

"Yeah, one could say that. That's when Ma first met Agent Richardson with the FBI. He is on our Christmas card list now and is dying to meet the woman that could spawn such creatures. They mailed their library cards to the White House with letters written in crayon asking for "Top Secret Library Cards…"

"Huh?"

"They found out that people can't check out books that are considered 'dangerous' anymore and that they believed they had the right to study anything including Nuclear Fission…"

She laughed, "But they can't understand…"

" …nuclear fission? No, they are geniuses though," he laughed. "But they think they should have the right to try."

"So, did they make the Guinness book for the youngest people with FBI files?"

"I don't know and _please_ don't tell them about Guinness. So, the President mailed them a list of the books on the Presidential Reading lists for Kindergarten through the twelfth grade and said once they read them all and sent him book reports on them all he would grant them access."

"Oh God…" she shook her head, knowing where this was going.

"Yeah, they started sending 2-3 reports a week with a copy of his letter each time… They are up to 6th or 7th grade now. Anyway, then they met me and I explained that we were secret agents like James Bond; a _huge_ mistake on my part. They researched spying and learned all kinds of neat things, like subterfuge, interrogation, deception, how to lie, ciphers; you know… the dangerous things. Basically if you can only see one of them now, they are up to something. The one you're looking at is either the look out or about to cause a distraction."

"So, they got a hold of my GPS, after overhearing that I found you and wrote the coordinates down. They then snuck out after dinner, stole the riding lawn mower…"

"Christ…"

"Yeah, it gets better. They drove it to Nixa…"

"That's like ten miles!"

"Yeah, they saw Avery siphoning gas out of Mike's car one night and had to do that a few times. So they go to the bus station, by using the GPS, and hand the guy a page from a coloring book with the coordinates on it and a bunch of savings bonds and demanded two tickets. When he said he couldn't issue a ticket to coordinates, they asked for two bus tickets to Paris," he said laughing so hard that he was red in the face.

"…from Missouri?"

"Yeah, they had no prior need for geography so they ignored the subject as patently useless. Their IQ's are off the scale, but they have massive knowledge and logic gaps. Their opinion of Geography changed after that; that error set them back months. Now they could teach Rand McNally a thing or two."

"I bet…"

"So, later I was in the grocery store with them and one of them asked if they could go to the nice man's car to look at his puppies, then pointed to some poor sap knowing I would charge over there and rough him up. The guy was stammering 'what kids?' and they were gone."

"God they are terrorists…" she was laughing so hard at thinking of 'the great Jason Bourne' jacking up some schlep on the dairy Isle of the Piggly Wiggly that she couldn't hook her bra.

"So, I'm looking all over the store and they do the Amber Alert thing and lock all the doors and start searching everywhere and a few minutes later I see police surround the building next door." She raised an eyebrow, "It was the First National Bank of Missouri…" Nicky was in stitches at this point. "The guy at the bus station had told them the bonds had to be taken to the bank and cashed in for money first. The teller couldn't cash them in because, besides them being four years old, the bonds weren't mature and they didn't understand what that meant."

"They got so angry that they went to plan B. Abby bit the bank manager's leg as a distraction as Heidi climbed on a desk and recited the opening of Pulp Fiction verbatim; my sister left it in the DVD player one day…"

Nicky shook her head and shrugged in ignorance.

He intoned, "_Listen up! This is a robbery! Any of you fuckin pricks MOVE and I'll execute every motherfuckin last one of ya!' _and she was pointing one of those toy spark guns they got at the circus, you know it has a piece of flint and a steel wheel and you pull the trigger and sparks bounce around inside it, and Abigail had a can of wasp killer they stole from the store. They were going try to hold them together and make a flamethrower…"

"Oh shit…" Nicky said all humor drained from her face. "That's a great idea if they knew how to do it right, wasp killer shoots like fifty feet too…"

"Yeah, tell me about it. They had learned from Pulp Fiction that banks will give out money if you just say you are robbing it. They demanded $3,854.23 which was the price of two one way tickets to Paris. Once again enter Agent Robinson…"

"They probably would be in Kiddy Leavenworth if the video had not got viral on the internet. People thought it was _cute_. I had a huge legal battle and agent Robinson had to pull some strings and convince Child Services that they wanted no part in this. They were punished severely for that on the home front, I doubt Heidi will ever get the taste of Lava out of her mouth; Ma had that bar in her mouth for a week. Heidi ate two bars before she figured out Ma was just going to get another one."

"I don't know if I really approve…"

Jason cut her off curtly with, "A Five year old with a flame thrower…"

"Yeah, yeah, okay…"

"But more on the punishment later… Next time I got a preemptive visit from Agent Robinson sarcastically asking if I was planning on hijacking an airliner…" Nicky's eye's got wide and her mouth fell open. "Yeah, they figured if they couldn't buy their way onto a plane they would hijack one, so they researched it on the internet. We had banned them from computer use but they used Ma's cell phone to record Avery logging in with the password. So, yes they pretty much made me come and find you otherwise they were going to be Leavenworth's youngest tenants and they also lost their internet privileges for life. They were going to figure out how to get to Paris sooner or later, or die trying. They needed to see you."

"O-okay, you're f-forgiven," she stammered in a shock. Snapping out of it she asked, "How _did_ you find me?"

"Reina gave me a hint."

"That harlot, I'm going to pimp slap her the next time I see her…" she laughed for a second, but it died in her throat. He had been standing up from tying his shoes and paused for a split second and swallowed hard as he stared at her chest refusing to meet her gaze. Nicky sagged, "Oh God, they found her…"

He pursed his lips and shook his head, "No." He cleared his throat, "Ovarian cancer… It spread fast. She knew she had it when she went to Jersey, that's why she looked so bad."

She tried to say something but couldn't.

"She sent me an email to come and see her on the next flight, I didn't know why. She had been trying to reach you for months. She asked me to take care of her…"

Nicky nodded solemnly, knowing he hadn't been giving her apple juice and fluffing up the husband. "It must have been difficult for you. She would have done it for us…" she said sadly." She asked trying to change the subject, "Did she ever finish decoding the Intel?"

"Yeah, there were huge gaps though. There were a few projects that were referred to that we didn't get the drives for, or they weren't there: Iron Condor, Dystopia, Babel, Utopia, and Slalom. We know their names and little else." He was proud that he saw no reaction from her at all; he could sense relief after he said that they didn't find anything. "Other projects we found out a lot about. But, like I said… Let's forget about it and move on, we can put it all behind us."

She nodded and hugged him deeply as if she were nesting. He didn't care if she ever told him the truth, he knew it already. She had told him all those years ago that he would wish that he never knew and she was right. Everyone had the right to their own secrets.

"So, she wouldn't tell me where you were. After I started the morphine drip she said I'd find you _'the first place I would go, but in the last place I'd ever look_.' She asked me to kiss her and then told me to go and find you and to make love, not war…"

"Still that's not much of a clue…" she managed.

"No. Hirsch helped too," she slumped her shoulders and rolled her eyes. "It's not like that. I went to see him because I couldn't do it alone. The trail was too cold. He told me a lot of things. About all the programs and he told me things that really upset me, things that I want to do something about, but I won't… I can let go."

She waved her hand flippantly, "Okay, go on…"

"So, I went to Paris first…"

"…and looked where?"

"My old apartment, the one Castel shot up and the old safe house."

She laughed lightly, "I like that… That's really brilliant! I always was jealous of your apartment too. I loved that place. I cleaned it out and had everything repaired after you fled."

"Yeah, I found out that it's a condo and that I own it outright. After that I went everywhere looking for you, working as a cook, a seamstress," they looked at her dress laying in the ground and laughed, "a maid… I looked at five star hotels and resorts. I heard about a waitress at a Fondue house in So Ho that ended up burning down the whole restaurant… I went to Manhattan to see if you were living over that biker bar two blocks from Treadstone HQ. I remember you saying we should go to Fiji, you were right… I spent three weeks there."

"Ass," she laughed as her mood lightened again.

"Careful, Ma hears you and you'll have Lava in your mouth…" he put his arm around her and walked with her to the front of the ruined church."So, Ma's asking for the name of the Neurosurgeon and Lawyer that wanted to adopt the twins," he laughed. She blinked at him not sure if he was kidding, "She was so relieved I found you, she is in over her head. I can't watch them alone; I'd be out numbered… The only one that can handle them is Avery and that's because she is usually getting in trouble already and taking the fall, they see it as an adventure."

"So, what exactly are you asking me?"

"Well, I know you never got that big wedding you always wanted…"

"I don't really want that…" she said, disgusted at the idea.

"Well I never technically asked if you wanted to be the mother of my children."

"No, you didn't Mr. Bourne. Can you give up the life of adventure and excitement…?"

"Can you live with the idea of me as a couch potato?"

She curled her nose in complete distain, "We'll find a middle ground… you know something safe like being on a SWAT team or Bomb Squad."

"So, you're willing to become Mrs. Bourne?"

"Hey! Whoever said I was willing to change my name!" they burst into laughter. "No more saving the world, or vendettas and I'll allow you to take me away from all of this!"

"So, we are going to fight a lot right?"

"Oh, yeah!" she laughed again. "We never lived together, hell we've rarely been in the same car together."  
>"So, I should buy the long sofa and not the loveseat?"<p>

She laughed and nodded, "You'll be on it more often than not… I'd invest in the sleeper sofa."

When they exited the small garden gate, they were whispering and laughing but instantly went silent and Nicky went for her weapon, but Jason caught her arm. Sitting on the same bench Jason and Avery had been waiting on earlier was a rugged looking man in a black trench coat, gloves, a grey sweater, and matching scarf. He had his arms stretched out wide across the bench and opened his palms showing that he wasn't holding a weapon.

"Mr. Bourne, Ms. Parsons… Sorry for startling you, but I didn't want to interrupt…" Nicky blanked her mind and her face in an attempt to keep from blushing.

Jason lowered Nicky's arm gently, "This is Agent Robinson with the FBI. What are you doing here?" he sounded suspicious and alarmed.

He reached over to a briefcase that was next to him; he opened it and showed them that it contained several thick manila envelopes as well as several small boxes and a pistol and holster. He closed it and handed it to Jason, "I was asked by the President, personally, to bring you that and per Ms Landy's instruction it was to be delivered to you both together."

"Why?" they asked in union.

He shrugged, "I haven't the foggiest. I just know Ms. Landy wanted you to have it and that I got it from the President. I didn't ask him and frankly I bet he didn't ask her either.

Bourne said tersely, "If that's a mission, we don't work for you people anymore…"

"You people?" he quarried.

Nicky snapped, "The CIA."

"I work for No Such Agency."

"Well, tell the NSA the answer is no," Bourne insisted.

He shrugged, "Hey, they just asked me to deliver them." He turned and walked quick towards the parking lot. "Ah, the girls are back!" he called over his shoulder.

Jason walked quickly after him, "Why? Why did they ask you to deliver them?"

"Because I'm the only person you haven't killed I suppose. Pleasure to meet you Ms. Parsons, he paused before getting in the car and asked her, "Planning on having more kids?"

She laughed, "No."

He looked at the sky, "Thank you… Well I'm officially on vacation now," he said as he slid behind the wheel.

Nicky beamed, "staying to enjoy France? It's so beautiful this time of year!"

He looked at the twins climbing out of their rental car, "Nope, Australia…" he yelled as he sped off, unintentionally spraying them with gravel.

Later that night they sat on the bed in his hotel room digging through the case, "They're pardons Jason, for different countries and different names. There are all kinds of things in here… checks for back pay…new passports for the girls with matching last names. We've been offered reinstatement… Holy crap, there are hand written job recommendation letters in here signed by the President, the Speaker of the House and the Director of the CIA…"

He was still digging through his, "I've been offered reinstatement in military with commensurate increases in rank and pay grade…"

"This is my Medical License for America, England and France…" she frowned.

He offered innocently, "Well you could always practice out of your home. Plenty of shrinks do; you don't have to be a medical doctor." She looked suspiciously until he added, "That's too much like _work_. I think you'd be a great child psychiatrist…" She smiled at him as he opened a little envelope.

"Here are my old dog tags…" he slipped them around her neck and she involuntarily curled her nose at the touch of the non-precious metal against her body. He shrugged, "I think dog tags are hot on women…" She nodded at the sleeping twins in the other bed and he nodded, "They would love them too… we need another chain though."

He wondered out loud, "Why would Landy want us to get this together?"

She cocked her head in thought, "When I first met her, we talked on the plane and I knew she suspected us but didn't quite ask. I guess she wanted us to decide on what to do together?"

He nodded, "On equal terms, it makes sense."

She looked over at the twins just as one flailed her arm and smacked the other in the face, "So, are they heavy sleepers?"

"Oh yeah…" he purred.

Eight weeks later

Paris, France

Jason's old apartment

It was early morning and Jason was getting ready to head out the door to go to work, he had been hired as the Chief of Security at a Mega hotel and casino which sounded boring until he explained all of his job duties and that the most affluent people in the world stayed there; his first week a member of the British Royal family was a guest.

Nicky had auditioned for the Orchestre Lamoureux and was granted a role as an apprentice violinist, which she hoped would grow into a permanent role. She strode into breakfast last and groggily sipped the coffee Jason had poured for her. One of the girls was sleepily eating her cereal and the other was leaning on her hand, asleep with her head precariously over her bowl. The twin that was awake, she thought it was Heidi by the evil grin, saw the opportunity for mischief and her eyes lit up.

"Don't even think about it Heidi Marie…" Jason said as he tied his tie. She frowned and returned to her cereal, eyeing her twin the whole time hoping gravity would do her bidding.

She saw her robe on the back of her chair and her slippers on the floor and she put them on. Every morning she walked out to the kitchen, got cold and went to the bathroom to get them, she looked at Jason and smiled at his kindness even though he wasn't looking. She put her over-easy egg between her two pieces of toast, which already had hollandaise sauce on them; she smiled at him for knowing her habits. She bit into her breakfast sandwich and the eggs were vastly undercooked and cold egg yolk squirted into her mouth. She ran into the kitchen and spit it into the sink.

He saw the egg running across her plate and said regretfully, [Sorry, I was late for work and distracted.] Distracted was a nice way of saying he was watching the twins. [Next time I'll use the timer.]

She saw the egg yolk in the sink and could still feel the sliminess in her mouth, causing her to throw up a little in the basin.

He looked up and had déjà vu, something he rarely had the pleasure of experiencing. As he tied his shoe he joked in English, which was a rarity in their household, "when was the last time Constance?"

"When was the last time what?" she asked, rinsing her mouth out.

"When was the last _time_?"he laughed as he tied his other shoe.

He heard a crash and the breaking of glass from the kitchen, "Oh fuck…!" the three of them looked up and gawked at her. Her mouth was open and she was staring at a wall calendar on the other side of the room, understanding his reference.

She looked at him in a panic and exclaimed- just as Jason blurted simultaneously, "Bourne…!" "…again?!"


	25. Credits Auth notes comments etc

First of all where credit is due, I went and looked up some authors whose works I hinted at. I wanted to have like twenty little flash backs and while I wrote some, I remembered these scenes from stories I read and wrote a sentence or two about them:

VerelLupin -Hesitation  Nicky not realizing she was pregnant and going to the calendar.

TealMoon - Winter Bourne Nicky shot and bleeding out on a surgical table in a vets office.

Dulcedecorumest -The Untold Story Nicky wanting to go to a rave to have a normal birthday and Munich at Christmas.

Gostlcards- Mistakes We Knew We Were Making Also had Jason as a twin and going to Nix(I was doing this already) and dancing to Oasis: Wonderwall

Beringae- Time Immemorial chapter 6 Jason hears her Violin and breaks into her apt thinking something is wrong because the music is so sad and she hurls something at him. (Mad props to Frust-sheep for letting me know the title and author of this one, I couldn't find it.

****Thank you all for your hard work, I loved every word (unless your story is unfinished, then I damn you to hell… lol)

Random thoughts, revelations, and research notes:

Paz really does mean Peace in Spanish. This gave me the idea of made up names that the agents pulled from the air.

Kirill- I figured he got his name from a real guy named Kirill, he was a famous Russian Patriarch (Bishop) in the early 1990s. Kirill was accused of having links to the KGB during much of the Soviet period, as were many members of the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy, and of pursuing the state's interests before those of the Church. His alleged KGB agent's codename was "Mikhailov". For our Kirill I went with the first name Mikhail.

The Professors name I had a lot of trouble picking out (he didn't have one in the movie: spoken or on paperwork) and then I remembered the one on Gilligan's Island not having one and laughed. I Googled the Gilligan one anyway and he really did have a name, Roy Hinkley. I thought it was something cool that maybe one reader got the first time and everyone got when I explained it. I thought it was funny, the thought of him using a famous characters name and no one knowing it.

When Nicky was interrogating Desh, she is asking him questions from the Holy Gail: What is your favorite color? What was the capitol of Assyria? I thought it was funny for him to actually know the answer: Assur.

Charles Lindbergh did invent the Longines watch, the artificial heart, and was a total bad ass. Just reading his Wikipedia page is awesome. I am a Historian and I remembered thinking that I wished we could clone this guy, so when I started writing this I looked him up. The fact that he created a medical implant was the icing on the cake.

A real Rolex really doesn't tick and the hands move fluidly and don't 'jerk'.

Nazis really did experiment on Russian soldiers to learn how to treat frostbite, exposure and Gangrene.

Project Paperclip was real and the captured scientists created the space program.

The village Josef Mengele lived in really does boast a rate of twins at 1 in 5 births, no one knows why. He was obsessed with twins and it is likely that he heard of this phenomenon and went there due to it, not that his research resulted in it.

I made Nicky a prodigy simply because of her age. Who is 19 and in the CIA (as her file states)? A deleted scene in Supremacy also reveals that Nicky is supposed to be a Doctor. Several other fanfics have picked up on this as well.

When I said Nicky traveled the world at 15, when her father made her take a year off, what I didn't say was that she did it alone. I was going to revisit that later, but never did. She went to France and didn't know French. I always saw her as a person that was tragically and perpetually alone, even when she wasn't. This explains the sad and lonely look she has as she gets on the bus, it looked like she was use to it.

Nicky as an asset came to me as I was researching the movie, her file can be seen at one point and if you pause it (Bluray only) you can see she has a TON of weapon training and knows like 4 types of unarmed combat including sword fighting and specifies: Saber. It also said she was born in New York: as was Julia Stiles (who grew up with Clair Danes). It also lists prior assignments in Drug Enforcement and the CIA Forensics Laboratory, although I had no reason to use this.

Her file said her mother's name was Heidi; she named the twins after their mothers, Heidi and Abigail. They are supposed to represent the 2 halves of Nicky. Heidi is the prim and proper diplomat, the doctor and the socialite (the evil one). Abigail is the explorer, star gazer, pilot, artist, and tom boy. She is always dirty from playing outside with bugs and looking for fossils (the good one). Amongst the other twins one was always perfect and the other died, had a defect, or lack the same promise.

She named her M1 Thompson Fred- as in Fred Thompson, an actor (Law and Order) and long time senator for Tennessee, was running for the republican spot for president last time- that McCain won.

Jason's father as a whole, I patently ignored, as I did with whether Hirsch was his Bio dad. I'll leave that to the reader to decide. More on this would have been revealed in the Bad Ending if I had done two endings as was the original plan.

Reina's father didn't really kill himself; Hirsch killed him to control Reina. This was never revealed, but also would've been in the bad ending.

Reina was originally supposed to be in one scene, I was going to use her as an 'end result' of Nicky… how she would have been after four years of training. Reina was supposed to have been killed on a deep cover op by the reflexes she boasted about: a car backfired next to her and she dove for cover- not something a normal woman does. She was always there as a 'death' option, I never kill off non-OCs... it's bad form.

I see Stephanie Jacobsen as Reina (On you tube search: "Sarah Connor: Stephanie Jacobsen") Asian women with Aussie accents = Epic Hotness.

The next time you watch Ultimatum, listen to the news caster reporting Bourne being shot and falling off the building (when Nicky is in the cafe). I swear that is Matt Damon as the newscaster as he is pinching his nose shut. It sounds like him... but haven't found conformation. (I looked it up on you tube Search: The Bourne Ultimatum (9/9) Movie CLIP - Shot and Missing (2007) HD

Oh... google / youtube these for _**real**_ALT Bourne endings. One is for the first movie; the other is for the second. Both have him being caught by the CIA; the first one is super creepy.

(search you tube) "Donald Landers IV - The Bourne Identity alternate ending"

(search google) the other is: "the-bourne-supremacy-rare-alternate-ending"

Also, Supremacy had a bunch of Nicky scenes that were cut; they wanted to save the romance revelation for the final movie. There is a scene with Landy and Nicky on the plane, right after they first meet, where just Nicky and Pam are talking and Landy states something like, "A wide eyed 19 year old girl in Paris, the most romantic city on Earth, with a Blue eyed James Bond- as if nothing happened..."

My original intent for Jason's sister-in-law was for her to _not_ be married to his brother, but be Jason's ex-wife through divorce that still lived at his mother's house (couldn't remember anyone using a wife or exwife in any of the fics). Michael was going to be the guy Nicky was with after Paris. Jason only would have found this out (and the reader) in the 'bad ending'. I wisely decided on a combat chapter there (Nixa) and knew it was long enough already and so I abandoned the idea.

The bad ending had a lot of the same info, but was obtained different ways. Instead of the scene with Hirsch there would have been a scene at Reina's death bed. Bourne _wouldn't_ have found out about there being twins at all (nor the reader). But, instead of the twins, it would have revealed more on Bourne's father as he remained stuck in the past, rather than looking to the future. He would have visited Nicky alone and she would have refused to ever leave the church, she would have told him, at that point, what she had done and he would have left (Specifically she would have been facing away from him talking about utopia and when she finished she'd turn around and he would've been gone already having left in disgust/horror). Originally in the good ending Nicky wasn't at the church but living in Jason's old apartment in Paris and playing at the orchestra.

Nicky's ignorance of her own menstrual cycle is a reflection on geniuses never thinking about day to day normal issues.

The hardest part to write was Nicky not lying about having twins but still trying to keep suspicion from the reader; she just used clever word play. Never did she say 'the baby' or 'a girl' etc. RE: "I kept missing my appointment… Somewhere there is a room painted a very light pink," she said warmly. "You have passed on your beautiful blue eyes and I have passed down my nose and apparently my lungs to a future generation. Family members have been assuming our parental duties with the very clear knowledge that, if our lives ever stop involving high explosives, we might want to reclaim our offspring," she said sadly. (Also she said family members, she didn't say they were hers…)

The part of this story I will never forget and makes me laugh still (When he has her tied up at gun point):

"Wow," he snapped. "What can't you do?" he asked sarcastically.

"Draw… which your are great at, bench press my weight, or sew. Oh, and I can't cook... not even toast. I subsist on room service and pop tarts alone…"

"You can't cook at all?" he asked incredulously.

Her eyes narrowed as though he had said something vulgar, "The last time I was in a kitchen it was to see why my Eggs Benedict and hollandaise sauce wasn't on the table; I found the cook dead on the kitchen floor."

"That's horrible," he said dripping with sarcasm.

"I know, right? Do you have any idea how hard it is to find someone that can make really good Eggs Benedict?"

As far as my thoughts on Legacy:

I liked that there were female assets (and Black and Asian) and that they were burning down everything and everyone (since I was doing that already too).

The drug part kind of turned me off; the fact that they used army rejects and not prodigies most of all. I could have tolerated the beginning, but to have the whole movie be about a junkie trying to get his fix was a turn off.

I thought it felt a lot like Ultimatum. I think they would have been better served having a James Bond type movie and then have them try to kill him at the end, rather than start off by running (I am so over the running, lol). Or, I thought from the trailer that Renner was going to start off in prison or a nut house, I think that would've been cool. You know that they caught him or locked him up at some point and then, when they are burning the program, they go to kill him and he gets away.

Rachel Weisz has always been hot and I thought Renner was an excellent choice. I thought their acting was great and Norton has always surpassed my expectations (which are low for him).

I would've liked them tying the movies together at the end somehow. I know they wouldn't show or refer to Jason (Casting issues), but having either Pam or Nicky come up at the end could've lead to another movie easier without committing to Matt Damon. As it is now there seem to be no solid Legacy loose ends.

Anyway, thanks again for reading…

6


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